


April Come She Will

by tetrahedron



Series: Not Fade Away [2]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: A Happy Ending, Angst, F/M, Smut, Survivor Guilt, Unreliable Narrator, hawke's time at skyhold, the reunion scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-09
Updated: 2017-02-26
Packaged: 2018-04-08 12:22:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 45,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4304898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tetrahedron/pseuds/tetrahedron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Varric has one story left to tell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. April

_An Introduction_

Varric is a liar. He makes no secret of this, and yet people are always mistaking his fictions for fact.

It’s not that he enjoys making credulous fools out of people (not most days, anyway). He tells stories to keep himself sane, to give order to the chaos of his life. 

And it’s not all lies. Some of this shit is just too crazy to make up.

But sometimes ‘how it really happened’ isn’t good enough. Or he knows he can do better. Or he thinks he sees a hidden pattern coiled like a snake behind a sequence of seemingly unrelated events.

Who cares if it’s true? What matters is that it feels right. 

Sure, maybe it’s a little far fetched that the Champion and her family should be rescued in the nick of time by an immortal witch. But isn’t it also true that riding on a dragon’s back makes for a better story than slogging through miles and miles of reeking swamp? The same way that a blood mage conspiracy makes a lot more sense than a random act of violence, and a ‘cursed’ artifact makes a better explanation for a brother’s betrayal than… well. A lot of things.

Not that he tells Cassandra any of that.

What he does tell her, when she asks him over and over again, is a mix of truth and lies calculated to appeal to her sentimental side. She believes in honor, duty and, most shockingly, in full fledged romantic love. He tailors his story to reflect these elements. 

It is rare that he constructs something with such a specific audience in mind. The results tend to be a little haphazard.

“Why is it that the Champion and her companions spent so much time fighting in caves?” the Seeker demands, her brow furrowed. Varric sighs. 

“Shit, Seeker, I don’t know,” he says, running a hand over his face. “Why do abominations and slavers spend so much time _lurking_ in caves?“ But mentally he adds a note to use a different location for his next story.

She’s warming up to him, he can tell by the way she’s stopped stabbing his book. So while his tongue is busy weaving fanciful lies, he keeps his eyes and ears open. Cassandra has been interrogating him for months now, but he’s managed to learn quite a few interesting things from her as well. 

It’s obvious that things are not going well. The Circles are falling all over Thedas. More and more Templars are going rogue. And the Chantry, Varric starts to realize, is becoming desperate to regain control. 

It’s all falling apart. The sisters and the clerics can shout The Chant until they’re blue in the face, it doesn’t change the fact that nobody is listening. The Mages are too intent on freedom, and the Templars on hunting their quarry. And it turns out that regular people aren’t so interested in the word of Andraste with a bunch of lyrium crazed lunatics burning down their homes. 

They’re going to need a new martyr, Varric thinks. 

He’ll be damned if he lets it be Hawke.

Stationed within their camp, he’s well positioned to intervene should they actually stumble on her, or any of the others. So he decides to stay, to wait and see how this whole ‘Conclave’ thing pans out for them. And whatever happens, it isn’t really his problem, right? The Chantry will either sort things out or they won’t, and he and his friends will keep clear of matters that don’t concern them.

Then the Breach opens up. And there are demons, well, pretty much everywhere.

Suddenly all of Varric’s lies start to look pretty pale in comparison to the new reality they’re living in. And though he’d like to go back, to go home, he doesn’t miss the way that Cassandra stares up at the sky, or the dark circles under Leliana’s eyes. Someone will have to deal with this. He has a feeling he knows who.  

They’ve started making noise about forming some new organization, and Varric thinks maybe he might stick around just a little while longer. He’s had his ale privileges restored, at least. He keeps trying to convince himself that this isn’t his responsibility, that he’s just an innocent bystander. 

That line lasts right up until they visit the blasted remains of the Conclave. There's something growing from the wreckage of rubble and twisted bodies, and it sure as shit ain’t elfroot. Staring up at the jagged outcroppings of red lyrium, he feels the ice-cold chill of recognition deep in his bones. There’s a pattern there all right, only it’s not hidden so much as staring him straight in the face. It doesn’t take a renowned author to see where it leads. Or where it started. 

Whatever horror visited this place, he had a hand in setting it free.

And it’s with a heavy sigh that Varric finally acknowledges the truth he’s spent the last year trying to ignore. He’s not going anywhere. 

As it turns out, that’s probably for the best, because without him around those frothing Chantry idiots might have summarily executed their only hope for survival.

When they first bring in the qunari he thinks, well, they’ve found their martyr, poor sap. But she’s stronger than she looks, which is really saying something considering she’s about seven feet tall and built like an ox.

She’s all right, the qunari. Sort of stern looking. Not a lady of many words. She doesn’t have much in the way of a sense of humor, either. 

What she does have, as Varric and the others discover in the difficult months that follow, is a seemingly endless dedication to helping others, whether by retrieving supplies for the refugees, rescuing civilians and soldiers, or ruthlessly eradicating demons. And Varric figures that this quality is probably the most important, given that the thing she does with with her hand is still the only way they’ve found to close the rifts.

She reminds him a little of Aveline, if Aveline had horns and could shoot lightning from her fingers. 

And she’s effective, in her own blunt, terse way. It’s especially fun to watch her around the nobles, though he sort of suspects Josephine might not agree. One of these days Varric is pretty sure he’s going to see some Marquis or Duchess’ eyes pop right out of their head.  

And even though she’s not what you’d call a friend, she’s earned his respect.

Still, every now and then she’ll ask him a question and he’ll have to dance around the truth, spin some likely sounding fib. But he’s promised to stay and fight by her side, help her to do whatever he can to set things right. He figures that’s a good enough trade off for a couple of small lies.

Until Corypheus shows up.

The son of a bitch should have been dead. Varric had seen him die with his own eyes. But death doesn't stop him from storming the gates at Haven, from slaughtering half the villagers, and from leaving the qunari buried beneath a mountain’s worth of ice and snow.

That she survives is the closest thing Varric’s ever seen to a miracle. 

He can almost believe what everyone’s saying about her. But whether she was sent by Andraste, The Maker, or the Great Flying Nug in the Sky, it’s clear that she’s their only hope to put the world back together. And he starts to think that maybe he does owe her more than what he’s given Cassandra and Leliana. That she deserves something better than all those half-truths and evasions.

Maybe he’d gotten swept up in the same ‘Herald’ fever that flooded the barracks with new recruits, kept heads turning whenever the qunari walked by, the name ‘Adaar’ a hasty addition to the morning prayers. Though he likes to consider himself a skeptic, he’d been just as awed by her unlikely return from the dead as everyone else. Shit, maybe he’d wanted to impress her, show her she wasn’t the only one who’d fought that monster and lived.

( _Stop evading_ , he tells himself. Lying to your readers is one thing, lying to yourself is another.)

Maybe the real truth was that he simply hadn’t been able to resist the idea of seeing her in the flesh again, after so many years with only her legend for company. 

So what does he do?  

He breaks the promise he made to himself. 

Like a stupid, slavering dog, he goes to fetch the thing he is most proud of, picks it up in his jaws and trots back to lay it at the Herald’s feet. 

 _Hawke_.

\---

 

 This story starts in spring.

 

 

 

Spring in Skyhold is lot like winter in Skyhold.

The main difference, as far as Varric can tell, is that whereas before everything was just cold, now it’s cold and _damp._ He can feel it seeping in through the thick stone walls, see it in the limp draperies that hang heavy over the stained glass windows. And though the snowcapped mountains show no signs of thawing, he can hear the shrill creaking and hissing of the ice, punctuated now and then by a sharp _crack_ , and the muffled curse of whoever was unlucky enough to be standing next that particular section of the ramparts. 

Varric chuckles, and turns away from the windows. Slowly he picks his way past the clutter of the main hall. Through the glitter of unfinished mosaics and lost looking Orlesian nobles, he spots Sera loitering near the door to the Inquisitor’s room. He gives her a nod, and she pulls a face at him, as is their custom.

It’s strange, he thinks, his gaze lingering on the slim elven girl. Haven had never felt like home. He’d wandered around the makeshift town feeling out of place in his Free Marches silks and dusters, avoiding eye contact with the Chantry faithful and the motley collection of mages, mercenaries and troublemakers the Inquisitor attracted like wasps to honey.

But Skyhold is different. 

Varric still isn’t entirely sure how it happened. The broken-down old fortress certainly hadn’t been much to look at when they’d first found it. He’d gone along with the plan, same as the others (he'd figured that old chestnut about ‘any port in a storm’ held especially true when said storm included an archdemon and an undead darkspawn magister), but privately he’d thought it more suited to shelter an army of rats than the rag-tag crowd of refugees that had followed them through the mountains.  

Yet after months of hard work they’ve managed to transform it into a halfway decent stronghold. Only it’s changed them too, somehow. Because now, as he walks down the steps, there are familiar faces everywhere, and he thinks to himself that these people aren’t strangers, not anymore. The wary silences of Haven have grown into something richer, more familial, just as real and solid as the walls they’ve built together. And as he looks around the courtyard, Varric is startled by the sudden realization that Skyhold is no longer giving shelter to a group of refugees, but to a community.

(And for a moment there is a brief pain, sharp as a chip of broken ice, as he remembers the walls of another city, another group of refugees, their lost faces shining brightly in his memory and nowhere else.)

He continues on, sidestepping the scaffolding until he reaches the small garden chamber he has claimed as his own. He is satisfied to see that there are a few stubborn shoots of green poking up from the frost-hardened ground. _It’s a start_ , he thinks, turning down the hall. 

Suddenly he stops.

His door is ajar.

He is instantly on guard. Leliana recently informed him that some jackass has been committing a string of copy cat murders inspired by his ‘Hard in Hightown’ serial. He knows Cullen has been working closely with the guards (none of them want another Haven), but still, it pays to be cautious.

He lets his crossbow slip down off his shoulder and into his ready hands. Moving closer, he inspects the lock.

His eyebrows raise, and his face twists into an involuntary grimace of professional disdain. The mechanism is a mess of melted iron, the wood surrounding it blackened and scratched. What’s more, he can see several broken off tips of lock pics jammed into the warped keyhole, as if someone had attempted to do it the right way before giving up and slagging the thing.

Something warm and hopeful ignites in his chest, and a broad grin breaks over his face. He holsters Bianca, and, humming slightly, walks through the open door.

He almost trips over her staff, which lies haphazardly across the floor where she no doubt dropped it upon entry. Her bag is sitting on his desk, on top of the scattered pile of what had once been an orderly stack of pages sent by his editor.

And best of all, Hawke herself is sprawled out on his bed, sucking on her burned fingers.


	2. May

Over the next few weeks the shoots spring up into budding stalks and the snow inches back, leaving bare patches of earth in its wake. Ice cold rain pisses down from grey skies, and soldiers and nobles alike are reduced to squelching around the halls in sodden boots. Soon there are muddy footprints everywhere, turning the worn stones of the castle slick and perilous with grime. More than one overzealous supplicant has hurried down the flagstones of Main Hall only to lose their step and land with a curse on their backside at the foot of the Inquisitor’s throne. At Josephine’s insistence, great lengths of woven matting are deployed along the walkways of the fortress. The smell of wet wool hangs heavy in the air. 

News from Orlais is as grim as the weather. Neither the Empress Celine nor Gaspard de Chalon will heed the Inquisition’s warnings. Repeated attempts to resolve the situation through diplomacy have reached an impasse. Leliana’s ravens huddle in the lee of the Tower, puffing themselves up and squawking indignantly at anyone who comes too close. Everyone is in a foul mood.

Varric couldn’t be happier.

It’s a perverse kind of happiness, because the Breach is still swirling away up there in the sky, its sickly light lending a green cast to the clouds that gather over Skyhold. But in his room there is a crackling fire, a bottle of whiskey, a tray of cheese and apples and toasted bread. And best of all there is _Hawke_ , hollow-cheeked and pale but unmistakably herself, spitting seeds into the hearth and laughing, the blue of her eyes and the twist of her grin igniting a familiar ache in his chest. 

That first night they are daft as a pair of over-grown children. They stay up drinking well into the evening hours. Just before dawn there is a break in the rain, and he leads her up the ramparts, both of them slipping and skidding over the wet stone, the echo of her laughter behind him lending a sweetness to the sharp chill of the morning air. They watch the stars fade from the top of Skyhold’s tower. Or at least, Hawke watches, shivering against the stones, her face tilted up to the sky. He is too absorbed in watching her to bother with the sunrise. He finds himself studying her face for changes. There are new lines around her eyes, and a thin white line of scar tissue runs down the side of one cheek. Whatever has transpired in the years they’ve been parted, it's taken a toll on her.He wonders if she thinks the same when she looks at him. 

In the days that follow he keeps her like a secret, hidden away in his quarters. He is a little surprised at her choice of sleeping arrangements, but it suits them both better than he could have expected.

"I always was a bit jealous of Isabela, you know," she says from under his blankets. "The things you two must have got up to while the rest of us were sleeping."

"Yeah, it was a real riot," he replies, leaning back against his desk. "After the fifth ale she could never remember which door was mine and which was hers. I just loved having her burst into my room at 4am, some piss drunk sailor in tow."

She lifts the edge of the blanket to peer out at him. "Why didn't you simply lock the door?"

"Against Rivaini?” He shakes his head. "If anything she gets better at picking locks when soused. And besides, it was worse if she couldn't get it open. Then it was _thump thump thump_ up against my door for the next half hour." He pauses, smirking. "Sometimes less."

Hawke laughs, her body rocking beneath the soft wool, and he smiles to himself.

…

The others give him a wide berth since his bust up with Cassandra. The Seeker storms off whenever he so much as enters a room, and he's pretty sure Leliana has been frowning at him more often. He thinks the Inquisitor watches him in a new way, too. 

Blackwall still makes overtures every now and then.

“Ho there Varric," the burly warden calls out, his shield held up over his head in a futile attempt to keep dry. "Can we count you in for Grace tonight?"

"Sorry, Hero,” he says. "I've got other plans." 

Blackwall looks sly, no small feat for a man with raindrops dripping down his nose. "'Other plans', eh? Called it something different in my day."

"It's not like that,” Varric says with a tired grin, but Blackwall just waves him off, slogging away through the mud.

Everyone seems to have gotten the wrong idea somehow. It’s making him twitchy. And having her in his bed. Well, he may cultivate an air of charming detachment, but Andraste’s sweet hindquarters, he’s not _dead_.

But of course, there is the matter of her mysteriously absent elven lover.

At first he is curious. He’d written for her to come, but he’d hardly expected her to come alone. Yet as the days go by and they slip deeper and deeper into a comfortable intimacy, he finds himself reluctant to ask. He tells himself that he’s waiting for her to bring it up, that it’s not his place to pry. But she never so much as mentions his name.  

Then one night he’s sitting at his desk answering a long letter from his publisher. Hawke is curled up in a blanket by the fire. Every so often he pauses his writing to steal a quick glance over at her. 

He’s admiring the way the soft light of the flames plays over the curve of her cheek when she looks up and catches him at it, and with a start he realizes he’s been staring at her for a good five minutes. He smiles and quickly turns back to his work, but his heart is beating painfully in his chest. 

 _Enough is enough_ , he tells himself. It’s time to clear the air. Preferably before he does something stupid. 

“So,” he says. “Where’s the Elf?” He taps his quill against the vellum. “Probably brooding about getting left behind again, I’d wager.”

There is a long silence. 

“I didn’t leave him behind,” she says, her voice low.

“Yeah, right,” he says. “How’d you manage to give him the slip, anyway? Drugs in his wine? Or did you get Rivaini to provide a distraction?”

“No need,” she says.

“Huh?” he says, looking over his shoulder at her. “How’s that?”

She twists her mouth up into something that in better days might have resembled a smile. “He left me, Varric.” 

His quill drops. “You’re shitting me,” he says, turning around to stare at her. She shakes her head, still smiling that corpse grin. "What happened?"

She drops her gaze, the not-smile falling away. “He always was smarter than you gave him credit for.” She looks tired suddenly, the skin under her eyes bruised and smudged. “Don’t give me that look,” she says, turning away. “We both know it was only a matter of time before I got him killed.”

She actually believes what she’s saying, he realizes. And that makes Varric so furious that it takes a long time before it dawns on him that she hasn’t really answered his question at all.

...

That night, Varric can’t sleep. 

Hawke is curled up in his bed, a warm lump under the blankets. He watches her body slowly rise and fall.

 He knew that Fenris had left her once before. But after their reunion, Varric would have been willing to bet a considerable sum that nothing this side of the Veil or beyond could ever induce the elf to part from her again.

Apparently, that is a bet he would have lost. 

Maybe he should have seen it coming. The two of them had fought like a pair of rabid mabari. But he’d always figured that those fights were part and parcel of the same manic attraction that had brought them together in the first place.

He knew she took other lovers. Sometimes he’d seen her flaunt them, watched Fenris go stiff and furious next to him at the Hanged Man. Their public blowups were the stuff of legend. A couple times he’d seen them clear out the entire bar. But sooner or later, she always wound up back with the elf. It was a little nuts, really.

He’d tried to talk to her about it once, set her straight. But she’d fixed him with those bright blue eyes of hers and grinned. 

“You’re one to talk,” she’d said, poking him in the ribs.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

She gave him an inscrutable look. “It means I’ll stop pining over the broody elf as soon as you stop writing all those long, sad letters to Bianca.”

The phrasing of that particular statement will haunt him for years, but back then he’d just shrugged it off. “That’s different,” he’d said.

"How?"

“It's complicated. And besides, there are valid reasons we can’t be together-“

“Valid reasons,” she’d scoffed. She leaned forward, smirking. “I bet all those valid reasons make it extra satisfying when you do manage to get her alone.”

Varric snorted. “Are you trying to make me blush?” 

“Come on, Varric,“ she said, her grin bright and infectious. “Admit it. You like complicated.”

He’d sighed, ran a hand through his hair, looked up at her. 

“Well, shit. Maybe I do,” he said finally.

 

Now he watches her from across the room. Even in sleep there is a new tightness in her face, her mouth pinched in. 

He shakes his head, turns away.

Complicated isn’t the half of it.

...

He knows their self-imposed isolation can only last so long. Outside Skyhold things are still going steadily to shit, often in new and exciting ways. The dead have risen in Crestwood. A strange plague has stricken the Mire. Darkspawn have been sighted along the Coast. And above their heads, the Breach stares down, a visual reminder of what is waiting for them beyond the castle walls. Varric can dig in his heels all he likes, but he can’t keep the world out forever.

And yet for all that, when at last the trouble starts, it comes not from without, but from within.

…

The Herald’s Rest is crowded, but pleasantly so. It is evident from the mood of the place that everyone is sharing the same relief at being indoors on a cold, wet evening. The hiss of the rain on the rafters mingles with the low murmur of the patrons, the clink of full glasses, and the wistful melody of Maryden’s song.

 _"See how the rain has washed away_  
_The tears that you were crying..."_

Varric and Hawke sit alone at a table near the back of the room. She has her hands around a glass of nut brown ale, her eyes dancing as she tells him a story about accidentally setting Isabela’s ship on fire. By the end, he is laughing so hard that it takes him a minute to realize they have company.

When he looks up, it is to see Bull looming over their table, his large arms crossed across his chest.

“Hey Varric.” He nods at Hawke. “This who I think it is?”

 _Oh, shit_ , Varric thinks. This is going to be trouble. But it’s too late for lies, so he just nods.

"Iron Bull," he says, "Meet Hawke. The uh, Champion of Kirkwall." 

Out of the corner of his eye he thinks he sees her wince at the title, but when he turns she’s staring up at the qunari, her face impassive.

Bull lowers onto the bench across from her. He waves toward the little elven barmaid and she scurries over, dropping an ale in front of him.

"So," he says, leaning back. "You're the dame who brought down the Arishok." He looks her up and down. “Heard you were bigger." 

She shrugs. "Varric exaggerates now and then." Which is technically true.

"That fight though," Bull says, swallowing a mouthful of ale. "He exaggerate that?"

 _That_ rankles. “Are you kidding? If anything, I undersold it,” he says, sitting up and glaring. “You do understand that she fought him with _magic,_ right? In full sight of the Knight Commander, the Guard, and half of the nobility.” 

“So?” Bull says, scratching at the base of one horn.

“You ever stop to wonder why they didn’t lock her up afterwards?” He grins at the expression of surprise on Bulls face. “Maker’s balls, I get more shit about that one scene than anything else in the whole damned book. People are forever writing to me asking why the Templars didn’t immediately haul her off in chains to the Gallows. Well I’ll tell you why,” he says, drumming a finger into the table, “and you can go up and ask Curly yourself if you don’t believe me.” He grins wider, and leans forward. “They were fucking _terrified_. And keep in mind, these are Kirkwall Templars we’re talking about. They lose more recruits to blood mages and abominations than the Orlesian Army does to the clap. The ones that do manage to make it through are the toughest, meanest bastards in the Order. But after what they saw her do in that fight?” He shakes his head. “Not a single one of them had the balls to lay a hand on her.”

He’s about to go on (he could go on all day) when he catches sight of her face. 

“I mean, it didn’t hurt that she’d just saved everyone’s lives,” he hastily amends, backpedaling as fast as his tongue will let him. “In fact, I think it’s fair to say there was a healthy amount of respect there, not just, uh, abject fear-”

Hawke looks up. “Thanks, Varric,” she says dryly.

“No problem,” he mutters, sinking back onto the bench and resolving to keep his fool mouth shut.

“I believe she’s capable of some impressive shit,” Bull says. “But you don’t get to be Arishok without racking up some pretty impressive shit of your own.” He turns back to examining Hawke. “I guess I just always had a hard time picturing him falling to some scrawny human mage." He pauses. “No offense.”

“None taken,” she says with a crooked smile. “If it’s any consolation I can assure you that he fought well.” She stares down at her half empty cup. “In my experience, victory usually comes down to what you’re willing to do to win,” she says, turning the glass around and around in her hands. “He kept his honor, I kept my life. I sometimes wonder which of us made the better choice.” 

Bull snorts. “Seems pretty clear to me,” he says. Hawke looks up at him, startled, the glass almost toppling over. “Not much use in honor when you’re dead.” 

“Surprising words coming from a Qunari,” she says, raising an eyebrow.

“You’re thinking of the _beresaad_ ,” he says. “They keep those bastards all hopped up on the raw ideology. Don’t get me wrong, they can be damn useful when you’re looking to wage a holy war. But there are other ways to serve the Qun.”

“Really,” Hawke says, with a familiar glint in her eye. She tilts her head to stare at him, the glass forgotten at her elbow. “And how do you serve the Qun, _Iron Bull_?” she asks, drawing out the name like a challenge.

Varric coughs on his ale. “He, uh, may not be at liberty to speak about that-“

“It’s okay, Varric,” Bull says. He looks calmly at Hawke. “I’m a spy.”

“A spy?” Hawke echoes. “ _You_?” She looks him up and down. “You don’t look much like the type to slip in and out of places unnoticed.” She grins. “No offense.”

“Sometimes you learn a lot more as the type that does get noticed," Bull says. "If people assume you’re exactly what you appear to be, they don’t bother looking closer. You’d be surprised at what people are willing to say in front of a sword-for-hire.” 

“You make it sound rather sneaky,” Hawke says, sipping her drink. 

“Hey now,” Bull says, spreading his hands and flashing her a wide grin. “Do I look like I’m capable of sneaking?” 

“I suppose not,” she says, the corner of her mouth turning up. 

“Qunari weren’t built for stealth,” he says, shaking his head ruefully. “We leave that to the elves. My line of work is more about infiltration and information retrieval than clandestine assassinations. Still, it’s a different skill set than your typical _Antaam_ shield-beater. We’re encouraged to let go of romantic notions like ‘honor’ and ‘integrity’ real early on in the training process.” He smiles. “It’s less messy that way.”

“Information retrieval, you say?” Hawke says. Her smile drops, and she gets an intent look on her face that Varric recognizes with a sinking feeling. “Tell me, why didn’t they send someone like you to Kirkwall? Surely a few well placed agents would have been far more effective at locating the Tome than a contingent of fanatical soldiers?

“You know, I always kind of wondered about that, myself,” Varric interjects, trying to steer the subject back to safer territory. “I guess I just figured all your top agents were too busy out harassing Orlesian dukes.” Hawke ignores him, and Bull shoots him a confused look. “Ah, never mind,” he mumbles. 

“Look, there was a lot of controversy back at Par Vollen over that particular decision,” Bull says, rubbing his eyes with one large hand. “The short answer is that we would have, eventually. But the other leaders felt that the Arishok deserved a chance to atone for his mistake.” He grimaces. “It was a pretty major fuck-up.”  

“’You’re damned right it was,” Hawke says, and Varric can’t miss the anger in her voice now. “Hundreds of people died, on both sides.” She glares across the table. “It was a _mess_.”

“Tell that to your friend the thief,” Bull says, not smiling now as he stares back at her. 

Warning bells are going off in Varric’s brain, but as he deliberates on whether the situation would be better served by his crossbow or merely a disarming quip, the large qunari sighs. 

“All right,” he says, holding up his hands. “It was a bad call.” He reaches for his ale. “But who knows,” he says from over the rim of his glass. “Maybe you should be glad it was only the Arishok.”  

“What do you mean?” Hawke says, still eyeing him warily.

He grins, and leans forward, his drink between his hands. “Personally, I’ve always been of the opinion that if they _had_ sent someone like me to Kirkwall, things would have turned out very differently. For everyone,” he says, winking belligerently at her.

Hawke puts down her ale, tips her head up to look at him.

“Are you implying that you wouldn’t have fought me honorably?” she asks, her eyes bright.

Bull gives her a long appreciative look. “I’d have fought you with everything I had,” he says.

“And if it wasn’t enough,” she demands, leaning forward on her elbows, her face intent. “If I’d had you squarely beaten?”

Bull shrugs. “I’d have cheated.”

Hawke laughs, a long, loud peal that instantly transports him years back, to a different tavern, a different city. For a second he closes his eyes. He can almost feel the old stickiness under his shoes, smell the aroma of sweat, beer, beef-and-fried-onions, and behind it all the familiar salt tang of the sea…

“Well,” she says at last, slipping off the bench. “This has all been very illuminating. Please allow me to buy the next round.” She walks around to Bull’s side of the table and pauses, letting one hand run over his bare shoulder. Her nails stop at the curve of his throat. “I do hope we can continue this fascinating cultural exchange,” she says, with something that is not quite a smile on her face.

When she’s headed off to pay court to the surly dwarf behind the bar, Bull turns to him, rubbing the side of his head.

"Varric,” he says, shooting him an apologetic glance. “This is a little awkward. Is your girlfriend… hitting on me?”

Varric makes a noise that could charitably be mistaken for a laugh. “She's not my girlfriend," he says, drawing back. He rubs his eyes. “And trust me, when she hits on you, you'll know it."

Bull raises one eyebrow at him, but then three tall glasses of copper ale drop down in front of them.

"To the Arishok," Hawke says, seating herself beside Varric and lifting her glass. “An honorable man.”

“And to the Champion,” Bull says, meeting her gaze, “A living woman.”

All three of them raise their glasses and drink. 

Hawke runs a knuckle across the curve of her lip. “So," she says, her eyes going half lidded. "You ever think about getting satisfaction?"

Bull makes a slight choking noise, and Varric ducks his head to hide the face he’s pulled. Andraste's ass, but he'd forgotten what a terrible flirt she is. 

"Can't say I had," Bull says at last, eyeing her speculatively. "Until now, anyhow. You got something in mind?"

"As it so happens, Bull," she says. "I do."

Bull sets down his drink. He leans forward slowly, stretching out his long muscled arms. "Well then, I guess we’d better work this out."

"Oh, I think we'll be able to come to an agreeable understanding." She reaches up to curl her hand around the tip of one horn, pulling his head down toward hers.  

"Goodnight, Varric," she says, without looking at him.

"Goodnight Hawke," he says. 

And he watches as she leads Bull up the tavern stairs.

....

Much later that night, he’s awoken by the sound of his door banging open. There is a noise he dimly registers as the contents of his desk falling heavily to the floor, and then a pair of cold feet have wound around his.

"Geroff!" he sputters, coming out of his stupor to register Hawke curled up next to him. She snuggles close against his back and he grimaces, shivering at the frigid touch of her skin.

"You’re freezing,” he complains, twisting away.

“Lucky that you’re warm enough for both of us, then,” she says, burrowing closer.

“Just whose bed is this anyway?” he grumbles, but he lets her wrap her arms around him, her icy fingers burying themselves in his chest hair.  

“Don’t be like that,” she says. “You know I’m helpless against your charms.” 

“No one can resist,” he says, grinning into his pillow. 

"No one,” she agrees. She leans over and plants a kiss on his ear, the cold tangle of her hair wet against his cheek. Her face is wet too, and for a second he blinks, lifts his head around to squint at her. It’s too dark to see anything but vague shapes, so he tells himself it must just be the rain. 

He can feel the hard curve of her body pressed into his back, the cold bite of her fingers still clasped over his chest. She smells like sex and rainwater and wet earth. The room is quiet but for the muted sounds of the storm, the crackling of embers in the hearth. Her breathing comes steady and even at his side.

He opens his eyes.

“Hawke,” he says.

“Mmm?”

“Would it have worked between us.” He says it fast, staring up at the stones over his bed. “If I’d said something, all those years ago.”

She is silent for so long he thinks maybe she has fallen asleep.

“Maybe,” she says at last. “But we’d only have wound up making each other sickeningly happy. And you know thats the one thing neither of us can stand.”

“Right,” he says, closing his eyes and turning his face away.

“‘Goodnight Varric,” she whispers.

“’Goodnight, Marian.”

_…_

When he wakes up she is gone.

The stack of paper on his desk has been hastily rearranged. He finds a note placed on top.

_Varric,_

_Going to find Alistair. Meet you at Crestwood._

_-H_

He frowns, running a hand through sleep tousled hair. He draws one finger down the note. The ink is dry. He sighs.

...

That afternoon he hears a voice call out to him as he enters the tavern.

"Varric!" 

He turns to see Sera waving him over.

"Your Champion's a right nutter. Couldn't have done it better myself!" She collapses into a fit of giggles.

"What are you talking about?" he asks.

"Room's above the bar, yeah? Heard them two going at it last night. Pair of bloody loons,” she says, snickering.

"I'm not sure I want to hear this story," he mutters, but she is already off and running.

"So he's making this big noise about giving it to her good and proper, for honor and the Qun-like, talking all this _utter shite-_ ” and she breaks off into giggles again. 

Varric sighs. “Buttercup,” he says, “I really don’t need to know-“

“-But _she,"_ and the elf can barely get out the words from laughter. "What does she do but go and shout out _some other bloke’s name_?" She rocks back on her heels, laughing straight out as the other patrons of the bar crane their heads around to stare.

 _Oh shit._ "She what?" Varric asks.

"Mmmm, Fenry, Fenners, or summat." Sera squints up at him. "Guess you weren't just taking the piss about her not being your girl?” She purses her lips. “Too bad. She's well fit. For a human, anyway. She's got nothing on Inky," she adds hastily. Then she grins. "Wouldn't kick her out of my bed, though."

“He kicked her out of bed?" Varric says incredulously.

"Dunno. Things got right quiet after that. Imagine it took the wind out of his sails,” she snickers, holding her sides, "hearing her calling out like that. During the good bits too!" She shakes her head. "Never had it happen myself. Think it might'ave gone the other way round, once," she says, squinting thoughtfully,  "Married woman, yeah? Husband was in a right state-"

"Sera," Varric says slowly and carefully, "for fuck's sake, what happened?"

"Ease off! Gettin to it, wasn’t I?" she looks up at him reproachfully. " _He_ didn't get mad. Least not out loud. But I saw her come out round the back way not long after." She shoots him a curious glance. "Looked like she was headed toward your rooms."

Varric runs a hand over his face. "Where's Bull," he asks.

She grins again. "Out round the wall with our Cass. Think he's trying to get her to hit him in the face again." She giggles. "For the Quunnnn-"

"Thanks," he says, already halfway to the door.

She makes a disgusted noise behind him. “Urghh, the whole thing bloody _wasted_. Inky would've laughed." She brightens. "Better go find her then."

…

The training yard is a pit of mud. But here, as everywhere else in the castle grounds, someone has put down rugs of woven wool. They are so matted and dirty they practically blend in with the earth. Varric carefully steps over one, heading to the corner where Cassandra enthusiastically spars against the massive qunari.

She catches sight of him first. Her eyes narrow and she makes a low noise in her throat, something between a growl and a grunt. Abruptly she steps back, sheathing her sword. 

“Bull,” she says, nodding towards her heavy-breathing opponent “We shall continue this another time.” Her gaze skips over Varric entirely, and she strides off toward the stairs.

Both Varric and Bull stare after her.

“She’ll get over it eventually,” Bull says.

Varric shakes his head. “Don’t underestimate her,” he says dryly. “I’m pretty sure she’s capable of holding a grudge right up until the Void swallows us all.” But he watches as she walks away. 

When she finally disappears up the stairs to the Main Hall, he turns back to Bull. He clears his throat. “So,” he says, shifting his feet on the sodden matts, wondering how in blazes he’s wound up playing custodian of his best friend’s love life. “About Hawke.“

Bull raises his eyebrows. “You really want to talk about this?”

“Shit no,” Varric says, scowling. “But for the sake of argument, let’s pretend that I do.”

“Well,” Bull says, wiping sweat from his brow, “most people either want to fuck me or fight me. But your friend,” he shakes his head in baffled amusement. “I think she was trying to do both at once.” 

“It’s Hawke,” Varric says with a shrug. “Fucking and fighting are two of her favorite things.”

Bull shifts the giant sledgehammer off his shoulder, sets it to rest carefully against the mud-spattered wall. He looks back at Varric. “You know, I heard about some of the crap that happened in Kirkwall. Not just from your book, either.” 

“Yeah?” Varric says, his eyes narrowing. “Like what?”

 Bull shrugs. “Enough to know that whatever that was, it wasn’t about me.”

Varric blinks, then lets himself relax. “No hard feelings?” he says.

“Nah,” Bull says. “She ever wants to go another round, she knows where to find me.” He grins. “But whoever that Fenris guy is, he owes me a fucking drink.”

Varric rubs a hand across his face. “You and me both,” he says, turning away.


	3. June

_“To the Fade you shall return_

_Each night in dreams_

_That you may always remember me”_

_- Threnodies 5:1-8_

 

The rains have ceased by the time Varric is back at Skyhold. Blue skies spread out wide over white peaks, and the air is clear and sharp. For all it’s brilliance at this elevation, the sunlight never seems to penetrate the frigid stone of the castle walls. But after the vicious heat of the Western Approach, Varric finds he is grateful for the chill.

The company, however, is another story.

It’s not that he dislikes Alistair. The man has a disarming youthfulness about him, as well as a cheerful, earnest manner that wavers somewhere between endearing and grating. To his credit he’s saved Junior’s skin at least twice now, and by all accounts he’d been head over heels for Hawke’s cousin, which Hawke had clearly decided made him a sort of honorary family member.

Of course given this particular family,that’s not necessarily an enviable position.

It’s taken them a week to return from the Approach, and the pair of them have been bickering like siblings the entire way back. Indeed, Varric wonders if Hawke hasn’t begun to see Alistair as a sort of substitute for Junior. There is a familiar sting to her teasing, a bitterness that lingers beneath the words. More than once he’s caught the Warden staring at her in bewilderment after a particularly cutting rejoinder.By now Varric is well acquainted with the feats of verbal vivisection that pass for familial affection among the Hawke clan. But there is something different in the way she talks to Alistair. Her jabs are sharper, more focused. It is as if she is picking at a scab.

Frankly, the pair of them are starting to get on his nerves. It was bad enough having to listen to them snipe at each other while trudging through that blasted desert. (And the less said about that, the better. He’s still shaking sand out of places he didn’t know he had.) He’d hoped that once they returned to Skyhold things would settle down between them.

But it would seem that in this he is to be disappointed.

…

“Varric,” Hawke says, nudging him under the table with the toe of her boot. “Tell him about the Archdemon.”

Newly arrived the three of them have made a beeline for the Herald’s Rest, where, in a rare display of benevolence, Cabot has seen fit to provide them with a pitcher of Kirkwall brown ale. Between this small miracle and the fact that the day has been blessedly free of any quarreling, Varric is starting to feel cautiously optimistic.

Alistair’s eyes light up. “You saw it?”

“Saw it?” Varric says. “Damn thing practically stepped on me.” He frowns at Hawke, who is shaking sand out of her hair like a dog coming in from the rain. He puts a hand protectively over his glass.

“You’re certain it was an Archdemon,” the Warden presses.

“Sure didn’t look like your average dragon.” He winces and rubs his head. When had _dragons_ become average?

“He’s certain,” Hawke says, and Varric sees Alistair brighten.

“You know Warden, you’re just about the only person in Skyhold who seems to think that’s good news,” he says, squinting at the man.

“Oh, well,” Alistair says, looking away. “That’s my job isn’t it? Slaying Archdemons and so forth.”

Hawke snorts. “Maybe you ought to try telling that to the rest of your order,” she says, and Varric stiffens. _Andraste’s tits, not this shit again._

“As it so happens, I did,” Alistair says with a tight-lipped smile. “Then they tried to feed my innards to a demon, and the whole thing went downhill from there.”

“Itdoes seem as though they’re applying that whole ‘In Death, Sacrifice’ business rather liberally these days,” Hawke says. “I suppose it’s easy enough when it’s someone else’s death.” 

“It’s not their fault,” the man says, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. “Corypheus has clouded their minds.”

“Everyone has a story they tell themselves to justify bad decisions,” Hawke says, winking.

Varric groans inwardly. He should have known it wouldn’t take them long to return to their favorite topic.

“Look,” Alistair says, growing heated. “Obviously they made a mistake, but they believed it was necessary-“

Hawke’s bitter laugh cuts him off. “They will _always_ believe it is necessary,” she says. “Every new horror they commit will seem perfectly justified. That’s how blood magic _works_.”

“Guys-” Varric starts, but Alistair’s face has hardened.

“I suppose you would know,” he says.

Hawke goes still. 

“Well, there’s one thing _I_ know,” Varric says, his voice ringing over-loud even to his own ears. “Nothing beats a glass of Kirkwall Brown.” He forces a wide grin at his companions, who are still glaring across the table at each other. “Best damned ale in the Marches. Right, Hawke?“ She ignores him, her eyes glittering like chips of ice.

“This is the Blight we’re talking about,” Alistair snaps, oblivious. “I’d say the stakes are quite a bit higher than you and your friends running around killing bandits for pay.”

“I mean, can you believe they were able to get a keg of this stuff up to Skyhold?” Varric says weakly.

“You think the stakes matter?” Hawke says, grinning like it's the best joke she's heard all day. She leans forward, her smile dripping with scorn. “It never matters why. Not once you start.” Her voice is steady, casual even, but under the table Varric can see her hands are clenched into fists. “No matter what you tell yourself, whatever noble promises you make, you will break them a thousand times over. Once you have that power at your command, you will always find reasons to keep using it. There is no limit to what you will sacrifice.”

“Really,” Alistair says, his face flushed. “Does that include Kirkwall? Because that would certainly explain a few things.”

Hawke’s head snaps straight, and her fist rises up-

Varric sighs. With one final moment of regret for the craftsmanship of Kirkwall’s finest brewers, he reaches forward to jab the still half-full pitcher with his elbow, sending it careening across the planks of the table and over the edge. It takes out their pint glasses on its way down, splashing a wave of beer, foam, and broken glass into their laps. Both Hawke and Alistair start.

 _Blood mages aren’t the only ones who have to make sacrifices_ , Varric thinks, staring sadly at the mess on the table. He clears his throat. The sound echoes loudly around the abruptly silent tavern.

“Oops,” he says. He looks to the barkeep and shrugs, smiling. “My arm slipped.” Cabot glowers at him, and Varric knows it will be a very, very long time before he gets another glass of Kirkwall Brown.

He turns back to his table mates. “All right,” he says in a lower voice. “Enough is enough. You’ve been arguing about this shit since we left the Approach, _”_ he says, glaring at them. “We have enough problems as it is without the two of you tearing each other apart over petty crap. Give it a _rest_.”

“You’re right, of course,” Alistair says immediately, his face stricken. He nods toward Hawke, “My apologies. I spoke out of turn.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Hawke says, flicking a shard of glass off her knee. She looks up at him, her expression reproachful. “Was that absolutely necessary, Varric?”

“Not my best effort,” Varric admits, shrugging. “It’s been awhile since I’ve had to break up a bar fight.”

“What, really?” she says, eyebrows soaring.

Varric smiles. “It’s crazy, I know,” he says, “but apparently folks around here like to drink their ale in peace.”

“It sounds frightfully dull,” Hawke says, blinking. “But to each their own.” She folds her hands and looks at him expectantly. “I’m willing to work on the latter, so long as you provide the former.”

He snorts, and leans back to signal the barmaid. “Just try to keep it civil,” he says.

Hawke turns her attention back to Alistair, her eyes glinting. “So, Alistair,” she says. “It seems we are forbidden from discussing current events.”

Alistair regards her warily. “So it would seem,” he says.

“And local politics are right out. I get far too much of that already from Varric.” She jerks her head towards him, offering up a seemingly benign smile that immediately sets the warning bells clanging in Varric’s head.  _Oh great, here it comes_ , he thinks, bracing himself.

“So where does that leave us?” She taps her fingers on the bar, looking thoughtful. “Perhaps a discussion of the merits of the various breeds of darkspawn? I’m very partial to ogres, myself.”

“Are you?” Alistair says, blinking at her.

“Oh yes.” Her smile widens, showing teeth. “They make the most satisfying squelching noise when you rip them in half.”

The barmaid arrives with three glasses of a pale, anemic looking ale that gives off a vaguely sour odor. Varric takes a sip, and grimaces.

“I’m afraid I’ll prove a disappointment on that topic,” Alistair says, his face relaxing into a grin, “as I find them all quite equally loathsome.” He picks up his drink, his expression almost cheerful, and so clearly oblivious to what is coming that Varric can’t help but feel sorry for him.

“Well, then,” Hawke continues smoothly, “in that case, perhaps you might tell me something of my late cousin.”

Alistair chokes mid-swallow, and starts coughing violently. Varric shakes his head and claps him firmly on the back.

“Oh, I expect you’ve already heard most of the stories,” Alistair says when he’s finally managed to catch his breath.

“Come now, Alistair,” Hawke says with an arch grin. “We both know that what goes into the stories is chiefly rubbish.”

Now it’s Varric’s turn to choke. “ _Excuse me_?” he says, turning to shoot her an aggrieved look.

“It’s all a lot of self-sacrificing nonsense,” Hawke says, ignoring him. “I want to hear about who she really was, not the martyr they’ve made her into.” She drums her fingers on the table impatiently. “Who was she? Did she look like us? What did she think ofthe Circle? What was she _like_?”

“It wasn’t nonsense,” Alistair says, his face darkening. “The stories they tell of her are true.”

Hawke pauses, an unpleasant smile on her lips. She tilts her head to stare at him. “And yet in the stories, they say you loved her.”

She doesn’t have to say it. The question hangs unspoken between the three of them.

_So why are you here, while she is dead and gone?_

Varric glances to his left and winces. Alistair’s face has gone chalk white. “Let him alone,” he says, turning back to glare at her. “He doesn’t deserve this.” She flushes, and opens her mouth, but Alistair speaks, surprising them both.

“No,” he says to Varric. “No, it’s alright.” He swallows, and turns to Hawke. “I know what you’re thinking,” he says, looking up at her, the color slowly returning to his face. “You think it should have been me.”

“That’s not what I-“ Hawke starts to mutter, but he shakes his head, and she falls silent.

“You’re right,” he says, his fingers clenched around his half empty glass.

They are silent for several minutes. Alistair looks down at the watery ale in his hands, and slowly pushes it away. He motions toward the barmaid. “Fereldan whiskey,” he says when she walks over. “Strongest you’ve got.” He reaches into his pocket and deposits a handful of gold coin on the table. “Keep it coming.”

When she has brought them all tumblers of the smokey, amber liquid, he raises his glass.

“To Solona Amell,” he says, ”the Hero of Fereldan.”

He downs the whole thing in one go, then places it carefully at the end of the table. Hawke raises hers as well, draining it without a second thought. Varric drinks about a quarter of the glass, which is enough to make the room go slightly fuzzy at the edges, then puts it down. This is shaping up to be a long night.

“She didn’t look much like you,” Alistair says, as the barmaid scurries back to refill their glasses. “With Carver you can see the resemblance a bit more. Around the eyes, especially.”

“He’ll like that,” Hawke says, cracking a grin. “Just when he thought he’d found his way out of my shadow, it turns out he’s been standing squarely in hers.”

“And she didn’t particularly care for life in the Circle,” Alistair continues, wincing a bit as he downs the second glass. Varric watches with dismay as Hawke follows suit.

“Not many of us do,” she says, wiping the back of her hand across her mouth.

This time the barmaid shoots him a slightly panicked glance as they beckon her back over. _Maker,_ he thinks, watching her refill their glasses, _this is going to be a mess_. Sighing, he reaches out to catch her sleeve.

“You’d better leave the bottle,” he says.

“Yes serrah,” she says, eyeing Hawke and Alistair with trepidation.

“And for whatever it’s worth,” Alistair says, “I loved her quite madly.” He looks down into his glass.

They are silent for a moment.“So what happened?” Hawke says finally, her face intent. Varric kicks her under the table, but she ignores him.

Alistair swirls the whiskey around and around.

“One year,” he says, as if he hasn’t heard. “It’s hard to believe that’s all the time we had together.” His hands tremble as he lifts the glass to his lips, and tilts his head back.

When it’s empty he looks back at Hawke. “You want to know what happened?” he says, swaying slightly. “I wasn’t quick enough. I let the woman I loved deliver a blow that should have been mine.”

Varric sucks in his breath, past ready to put an end to this. But the man is still talking, his words flowing as freely as the whiskey into their glasses.

“We were both so young when it started,” he says, blinking. "It's funny to think about it." He gives them an apologetic smile. "You see, in my head we're still the same as we were then. Only, somehow I keep getting older and older, while she'll always be that same nineteen year old girl from Kinloch Hold." His voice falters. 

After a minute, he clears his throat, and continues. "Duncan had told us what it meant, joining the Grey Wardens, but I don’t think we really believed him. We were free for the first time in our lives, her from the Circle and me from the Chantry. And I suppose we thought that meant we could do anything we pleased.” He smiles, his eyes going vague and distant. “Well, not just anything. We were going to save the world, Solona and I.”

Hawke reaches for the bottle, refilling their glasses.

“For awhile it looked like we had a pretty good shot at it,” he says. “Solona was a marvel. “ He looks up to glare at her. “The stories don’t lie. Call it nonsense if you like, but that’s who she was. Kind, and brave, and always willing to help, no matter the cost to herself.”

“Come on,” Hawke protests. “Nobody’s that selfless.”

He shakes his head stubbornly. “I never saw her turn her back on anyone who asked for aid. If you don’t believe me, go to any village in Ferelden and ask around. Odds are you’ll find someone she helped.” He looks down. “I’m not the only fool who owes my life to her actions. She was determined to save everyone she could.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Varric sees Hawke’s fingers clench around the glass. When he glances up at her, her face is shuttered and tight.

“Then Riordan came,” Alistair says, his eyes fixed on his hands. “He told us the truth. About the Grey Wardens, about everything. After he died, it was only the two of us. No one else was coming. And we both knew what would be required.” He stares into the depths of his glass. “We had agreed to face it together,” he says. “Of course, I had my own plan right from the start. But she was always smarter than me. I ought to have known that she’d be planning something too.” He drains the rest of his drink, and reaches out blindly for the bottle. This time it takes him a few tries to grasp it.

“We were at the gates of the city,” he says. “I was fighting off the last of the hurlocks. When I turned back, she’d already slipped off. Took Leliana, Wynne and the dog, and that was that.” He shakes his head. “None of the others understood why I was so upset. I... I probably wasn’t making much sense at the time.”

“What did you do?” Hawke asks.

“I set after her on my own. Or, at least,” he amends, “I meant to go on my own. Zevran came with me.” He looks up with a bemused expression. “I’d never really trusted him, you know,” he says. “Partially because of how he flirted with her.” He rubs his neck, his face wry. “But mostly because I rather expected he’d been instructed to kill us all in our sleep, should the opportunity arise.”

“Well, that seems sensible,” Varric says.

“But he followed me when I left the others. Positively refused to let me go on my own, if you can believe it.” He looks down at his empty glass, his eyes clouding. “He’d always made a point of playing the fop, but he was quite clever, really. I think he had caught on by then, to what was going to happen.”

He takes in a breath, and straightens his back. “At any rate, without him I’d certainly have been killed. The darkspawn were everywhere. I can’t tell you the horror of it. It’s one thing in the Deep Roads, or in their spawning pits. You expect them there. But to see them in the marketplace, picking at the bodies of the dead. Or worse, the living…” He shudders. Hawke takes his glass, refills it, and pushes it back towards him. He cradles it between his hands as if it gives off warmth.

“We made our way up to the tower, Zevran and I. All the way through, I could sense the Archdemon. I knew we were getting closer. And then, suddenly, as we rounded the staircase, it was just… gone.”

He pauses, his face contorting.

“And I knew…”

Varric finds that the fraying hem of his coat sleeve suddenly requires his whole and immediate attention. 

When Alistair finally speaks again, his voice has gone flat and dull. 

“We found them up there, afterwards. Leliana had her cradled in her lap. She was singing.And it’s the strangest thing,” he says, twisting the glass in his hands, “because I can recall that moment so vividly, the taste of ash and rot in the air, the shape of her long hair spread out over the stones. I’d swear I can hear the melody of that song as clearly as if it were being played in this very room. But I can never remember the words.”

Varric reaches out to put a hesitant hand on his shoulder. “Hey, that’s enough,” he says. He glances up at Hawke, unable to keep the rebuke out of his voice. “Right Hawke?” She shies away from his gaze. “You don’t have to-”

“It’s fine,” Alistair says. “I don’t…I don’t remember a great deal after that anyway. Apparently some of the other soldiers turned up, tried to tell us we had to go. Zevran told me later that it was Wynne of all people who scared them off. Threatened to summon a demon.” He smiles down at his hands. “I wish I’d seen that.”

Varric clears his throat. “She must have been very brave,” he says.

“Oh, she was,” Alistair says. “The bravest person I ever met.” His smile fades. “It took me a long time to understand why she did it," he says. "And it’s hard, when I think about what she would do if it was her sitting here instead of me.” He rubs his face with the heel of one hand.“I try my best to act as she would have done. But there are days when I think, how can it ever be enough?” He looks up at Varric. “What can I possibly do to make my life worthy of that sacrifice?“

Hawke abruptly shoves back from the table.

“I’m sorry,” she says, standing up. Her gaze shifts from Alistair to Varric, and he can see her eyes are anguished. “You were right, I shouldn’t have-“ She takes in a deep breath, and shakes her head, swaying slightly on her feet. “Thanks for the drink,” she says finally, and bolts for the door.

Varric watches her go, his brow creasing. He turns back to find Alistair staring mournfully after her.

“I’ve upset her,” he says, and hiccups.

“She’ll be alright,” Varric says.

“I’ve tried to look out for her, and her brother,” Alistair says, closing his eyes. “But they’re both so bloody difficult.” He slumps over until his head is almost resting on the table. “For one thing, I can never manage to tell when they’re joking and when they’re serious.”

“Don’t sweat it,” says Varric. “There’s a steep learning curve when it comes to appreciating the finer points of the Hawke family sense of humor.”

“And for another,” the man continues, “they have the most uncanny knack for attracting the worst sorts of trouble.” He grimaces. “It’s as if they give off a scent.”

Varric snorts. “Tell me about it,” he says.

Alistair smiles. “Solona was the same way.” He gropes for his drink.

“You know, you might want to go easy on that stuff,” Varric says, watching him. “It burns like dragon fire going down. It’ll be even worse if it comes back up.”

Alistair jerks up in his seat, glass momentarily forgotten. “The dragon,” he says, leaning close enough that Varric can smell the liquor on his breath. “You’re absolutely sure it was an Archdemon?”

“I’m not really an expert on dragons,” Varric says, pulling back. He taps his fingers on the table and squints at the man sitting across from him. “But I have spent an awful lot of time around drunks.”

“Beg pardon?” Alistair says, frowning.

Varric rises. “I think it’s high time we got you to bed, Warden.”

It’s no easy feat, but he manages to maneuver the soused man out of the bar and down the corridor to the guest quarters. Alistair makes it half of the way on his own, and the other half draped over Varric’s shoulders, mumbling incoherently all the while.

“I didn’t think I ‘d get another chance,” he says as Varric pauses to prop him up against the wall. “The Blight only happens every 500 years. I was sure I’d die and then we’d never-“

“Warden, I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about,” Varric grumbles, cursing inwardly as he fiddles with the door latch. He’s had more to drink than he thought, and it’s making his hands clumsy.

“Shouldn’t tell you,” Alistair says, his head lolling as he taps the side of his nose. “Order secrets, you know.” Then his face falls. “Only it looks like there may not be an Order for very much longer, doesn’t it?”

“Not the way things are going these days,” Varric says, squinting in concentration. The lock gives with sudden a snap, catching the tips of his fingers, and he lets out a pained oath. “Maker’s balls!”

“Are you Andrastian?” Alistair asks, blinking down at him.

“Only on bad days,” Varric says, rubbing his fingers.

“I was raised in the Chantry,” Alistair says, sinking down to lie against the floor.

“So I’ve heard,” Varric says. He casts a doubtful eye at the man on the floor, and then at the distance to the nearest guest bedroom. He sighs. “You think you could do me a favor and stand up?”

“The sisters told us what happens after you die,” Alistair says, obediently struggling to rise. “The Maker takes you to his side. You stand beside His Golden Throne.” He spreads his arms wide. “’ _Cross the Veil and the Fade, and all the stars in the sky. Rest at the Maker's right hand, and be forgiven_.’”

“It’s a little early for that,” Varric says.

“The sisters used to sing it _very_ early,” Alistair says earnestly. He frowns. “Only-“ he trips, stumbling back down.

“Only what,” Varric grunts as he struggles to lift the larger man.

“It does’t work that way for Grey Wardens, does it?” he says. “Can’t have darkspawn taint corrupting His throne.”

“Yeah, that does sound like something He wouldn’t be so crazy about,” Varric mutters.

“You don’t understand,” Alistair says with surprising vehemence. Varric glances down at him, and stops, startled. Alistair’s face is haggard and desperate, his eyes bloodshot, and suddenly he doesn’t look remotely young anymore.

“She won’t be standing by his throne,” he says. “She won’t be forgiven.”

“What do you mean,” Varric says. He has a sinking feeling that he’s not going to like the answer.

“The secret, the one they make you promise not to tell,” the man murmurs, shivering against the stones, “Why it has to be a Grey Warden.” His eyes go wide, and he stares up at Varric. “When it died, she took the spirit inside of her. It killed her, but it didn’t _leave_ her.” His forehead is damp and pallid, his voice barely above a whisper. “The two of them are linked for all eternity.“

“Oh, shit,” Varric says, understanding dawning on him.

“But if there were another Archdemon,” Alistair says, his eyes slowly closing. “If I could reach it in time…”

Varric sighs, rubbing his head. The familiar shape of Skyhold blurs around him as he contemplates all the heartache it holds within its walls. _How can any of us hope to put the world back together again_ , he thinks, _when our own lives have been warped and twisted beyond repair_?

For a second he feels impossibly old, and weary all the way down to his bones.

 _Same way we built the castle,_ he tells himself. _One piece at a time_.

“For tonight, let’s just focus on reaching your bed chamber,” he says, pulling the man back upright.

With halting steps, he guides the warden through the door.

….

 

Varric will remember that night in the days following their return from the Fade, and for a long, long time afterwards.

 

…

 

The day breaks soft and languid over Skyhold, the rosy light of dawn painting the stones a faint pink. His quarters are close enough to the kitchens that the warm scent of bacon and freshly baked bread waft through the air. His stomach growls.

Varric blinks, and turns to woman next to him.

Hawke is still sleeping.

With a sigh he pushes himself upright.

Slowly he goes through the motions that make up his morning routine. He pulls back his hair in a leather cord and fills a battered tin cup with water from the pitcher on his nightstand, so cold it makes his teeth ache as he drinks. He splashes the remainder over his face and neck, rubs himself dry with a clean rag. Every so often he will glance back at Hawke. Under the pile of blankets he can see her chest slowly rise and fall.

There’s a knock at his door, and when he opens it the breakfast tray is waiting, steaming in the chill morning air. Two thick slices of ham, fried eggs, a pot of blackberry jam, and a rough slab of brown country bread. He eats a half portion at his desk, his attention still centered on the woman in his bed. 

He spends a lot of time watching her sleep, these days.

When he is finished, he leaves the remains on the tray at the foot of the bed.

By night it will be gone, and so will she.

…

In the garden the stalks have twisted up into wild tangles, the tender stems giving way to woody brown brambles, tips just beginning to show scarlet with the promise of blooms to come. Varric steps carefully around their snarled tendrils. He has learned from experience that it is better to avoid the bite of their tiny, needle-like thorns.

As he steps through the archway of the Great Hall he collides with Dorian, who drops a pile of books.

“Varric,” the man says, kneeling down to retrieve his fallen parcels. “Excuse my clumsiness. ”

“Don’t sweat it, Sparkler,” Varric says, brushing himself off. He stoops to help pick up a couple heavy tomes. But when he gets a closer look at the man, he pauses. Dorian’s normally glowing skin is sallow, and there are dark purple circles under his eyes. “You alright?” Varric asks, giving him a once over. “You don’t look so good.”

“Your friend and I were, ah, conversing late into the night.” The mage stifles a yawn. “She showed me the most marvelous trick,” he says. “It involved a dagger, a wine glass, a deck of delightfully obscene playing cards, and the serving girl’s undergarments. Try as I might, I couldn’t divine what sort of magic she used to produce them. “

Varric sighs. “Actually, Isabela taught her that one. Pure sleight of hand.”

“Fascinating,” Dorian says, his eyebrows rising.

Varric eyes him sideways. “I have to say, I’m a little surprised. I figured you of all people could keep up with her.”

“I’ll have you know that I possess an exceptionally seasoned palate,” Dorian says, the picture of wounded dignity. “But I am not in the habit of indulging in the sort of primitive spirits best favored by barbarian dog lords.”

“Ah,” Varric says, grinning. “So she brought out the whiskey.”

Dorian looks sheepish. “We started off well enough. A bottle of Nevarran Red. I was inquiring about the particulars of her education as a hedge mage. Before I knew it we’d managed to work our way through half a case of Antivan brandy, talking about our fathers.” He winces, and shakes his head. “By the end of the night she had me drinking some brown swill from the Bannorn that smelt of wet dog and tasted like wild hog’s piss.” He swallows. “I’m afraid it’s gotten the better of my normally ironclad constitution.” 

“Well, that explains it.” Varric says. At Dorian’s inquisitive look he elaborates. “She’s still sleeping. From the night you had, my best guess is she’ll be out until noon.”

“Personally, I blame this wretched climate,” Dorian says. “I’d like to know who first started the rumor that fresh mountain air is beneficial to one’s health. I simply cannot conceive of a more monstrous falsehood.”

“You’re telling me,” Varric says.

“I don't see why the Inquisition couldn't have established its headquarters at a more civilized altitude," Dorian continues, warming to his topic. "I understand that as the Herald of Andraste one is required to cultivate a certain air of ascetic mysticism, but this is really taking things a bit far.”

"Could be worse," Varric says, shrugging. “We’d all better count ourselves lucky that Chuckles didn’t know of any old ruined castles in the Fallow Mire.”

“An excellent point,” Dorian concedes.

"Madame!"

Both of them turn as the Inquisitor strides into the hall, an out of breath Orlesian noble trailing at her heels like a pampered lap dog trying to keep pace with a mabari.

“Our troops would merely be safeguarding the Inquisition’s interests-” he says.

“That won’t be necessary,” the Inquisitor cuts him off without a backwards glance. “Our own soldiers are well prepared to handle any incidents that should arise.”

“Ah, but Madame Inquisitor,” the man says, “In light of recent events, surely it would be wiser to take precautions." He offers her a conspiratory smile. "After all, we understand how it is with these Fereldans. You have only to say the word and Empress Celine will gladly intervene on your behalf-“

The Inquisitor stops, turning on her heel to glare back at the little man with such a look of menace that Varric sees him flinch. He glances back at Dorian, who is watching the scene with barely concealed glee.

“Five royals says we’re at war with Orlais by the end of the day,” the mage says in a stage whisper.

“You’re on,” Varric says. He makes his way to the rapidly emptying foyer, where the Inquisitor towers over the masked noble.

“Perhaps I haven’t made myself clear,” she is saying, her brow darkening. “I don’t give a tinker’s damn what your Empress does in her own country, but if you think for one second that I’ll stand for her shoving her turned-up nose into Inquisition affairs-”

“Madame,” the courtier says, stiff with affront. “I meant no offense-“

“Maybe we should let Josephine handle this,” Varric interjects, stepping forward to stand by her side.

“Josephine,” the Inquisitor says, her head snapping up. “Great idea. Come on.” She starts forward, and the masked courtier moves to follow. She lets out an exasperated breath, turning to glare at him. “Not _you_.” He shrinks back, and, pulling himself up to his full diminutive height, stalks away while muttering something blistering in Orlesian.

They find the esteemed Ambassador sitting at her desk, surrounded by a flock of attendants and a veritable mountain of scrolls, looking uncharacteristically rumpled.

Varric knows she’s had her work cut out for her since the events of Adamant. Apparently there's not a lot of historical precedent regarding normal people walking into the Fade, let alone royal bastards. The Queen has recalled her envoys, and what few missives they receive these days vary between icy formality and outright hostility. There has even been talk of closing the borders. 

Orlais, on the other hand, is only too eager to prove its newfound friendship to the Inquisition. Varric is not sure which development bodes worse.

Josephine barely glances at them, absorbed as she is in her work. “Inquisitor, “ she says, with a slight nod, “Varric. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“There’s been an incident with one of the Orlesians,” Varric says, as the Inquisitor paces around the room.

That gets Josephine's attention. Her head snaps up, and her brows draw together. “Who,” she demands, dropping her quill.

The Inquisitor waves her hand in the air. “Man about so high,” she says, “wearing a silver mask.” 

Varric hastens to her aid. “With a slight limp, and wearing a doublet sewn into a pattern that looks like a flock of lovesick swans,” he says.

Now Josephine looks alarmed. “Surely you don’t mean the Duke de Freyen?” she says. “He has only just promised to aid us in our campaign in the Emprise du Lion-“

“Yeah, something tells me he may be rescinding that offer,” Varric says.

Josephine’s face falls.

“If he only hadn’t sounded so _delighted,”_ the Inquisitor says, still pacing. “I mean, you heard him, right Varric?” She pulls a face. “‘ _Zee Empress has ‘eard of your troubles with zee Fereldan_ s,’” she spat. “Smug little bastard.”

Josephine sighs, and picks up her quill. “Valentine,” she says. “Go to the cellars and fetch a bottle of Antivan white. One of the sweeter varietals, please. Year…” she pauses thoughtfully, “8:24 Blessed. He will appreciate the significance.” She taps her quill against the desk. “Have it thoroughly chilled, then hand deliver it to the Duke’s quarters with a selection of the kitchen’s finest soft cheeses. Let him know I will call upon him personally this afternoon.”

A slim youth dressed in grey and cream silk rises from his perch by the desk, nods, and darts out the door.

“Well, that was easy enough,” the Inquisitor says, watching him leave. Varric shakes his head at her.

Josephine looks up, her expression fierce. “Easy?” she says. “I think not.” She flushes, and forcefully resumes her writing, her quill scratching against the parchment. “It will take me the greater part of the afternoon to repair the damage done by your careless words.” Her mouth thins. “Time that would have been far better spent repairing relations with Ferelden.”

“Where _do_ we stand with Ferelden?” the Inquisitor asks, eyeing the pile of scrolls on Josephine's desk.

Josephine’s face slips back into a mask of composure. "Your decision to the exile the remaining Grey Wardens was widely denounced by the bannorn lords," she says. "The people are still mourning the loss of Warden Alistair." 

The Inquisitor gives her a searching look. "And the Queen?"

Josephine smiles. “Queen Anora makes an appropriate show of grief.”

"But no more than that, you mean," the Inquisitor states, staring at her. She turns to Varric. "Is that not curious?"

"Well," Varric says, shifting his weight, "he did execute her father."

The Inquisitor blinks. "I see," she says. 

“That is part of it, certainly," Josephine says, pushing back a tendril of hair that has come loose from her bun.

The Inquisitor makes an impatient noise. "Don't keep us in the dark Josephine."

Josephine carefully sets down her quill, and begins massaging the fingers of her right hand. "Queen Anora has no Theirin blood to speak of," she says. "There is no heir to cement her claim, and her father was widely regarded as a traitor and usurper. Trouble enough for any fledgling ruler. But when you add in a royal bastard who so greatly resembles the late king as to be taken for his twin..."

"Ah," the Inquisitor says, her eyes narrowing.

“I'm guessing a dead hero is more useful than a living rival,” Varric says.

“Indeed,” Josephine says, inclining her head towards him. “I know it sounds heartless to say, but in a way we have done her a significant favor. A fact of which she is no doubt aware.” She smiles grimly. “Of course, to state such a thing outright would be unforgivably crass. But I must find a way to remind her of it all the same.” She gestures to her writing. “The wording of this letter is particularly delicate. Forgive me, my friends, but if there is nothing further you require…”

“We’ll leave you to your work,” the Inquisitor says, already turning away.

Once outside Josephine’s office she lets out an exasperated breath. “Andraste’s tits,” she says, rubbing the base of one horn. “What an ass-ache.” She turns to glare down at Varric. “Why can’t people just say what they mean?”

Varric chuckles. “What, and put all the diplomats out of work?”

“Alistair was a good man,” she says, frowning down at the stones of the Great Hall. “He deserved better than some trumped up show of mourning.”

Varric clears his throat. “Look, I’ve been meaning to talk to you,” he says, jamming his hands in the pockets of his tunic. “About what happened back at Adamant…” 

“Not now,” the Inquisitor says curtly. She sighs, and turns to him with an apologetic grimace. “I’ve got to go hassle Cullen about doubling the patrols in Crestwood and the Hinterlands.” She scowls. “Our friend the Duke had at least one valid point. The last thing we need is an outside party trying to take advantage of the tensions between us and Ferelden.”

“No problem,” Varric says, a little relieved. “Anything I can do to help?”

“I was thinking about taking a team down to check on the refugee camp,” she says. “Corporal Vale says they’ve been having problems with wolves.” Her gaze sharpens on him. “I know you’ve earned a break after Adamant, but if you’re up for it…”

“If anyone here has earned a break, it’s you,” Varric retorts. “But you’re clearly not planning on taking a vacation anytime soon. Which means I won’t be, either. “ He shakes his head, and shoots her an accusatory look. “You’ve gotten pretty good at this leading-by-example crap, you know that?”

She grins at him. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Sure you don’t,” he says, winking. “At any rate, you can count us in. Hawke and I’ll be geared up and ready to go by-“

“No,” the Inquisitor says, her smile dropping. “Not Hawke.” Her expression is unreadable. “I think we can manage without her this time.”

“Uh, sure,” Varric says, taken aback.

“Grab your kit and meet us by the main gate in an hour,” she says, clapping his shoulder.And with that she strides off towards the door, leaving Varric to stare after her in consternation.

…

Back at his quarters, Hawke is still sleeping.

He doesn’t know what else he expected. It’s been like this since their return from Adamant.

When she'd started slipping off to the tavern at night, he hadn't thought much of it at first. They were all pretty shaken up by Alistair’s death. If she was quieter, more withdrawn, he'd just figured she was still grieving the loss of a man who'd been like a second brother to her. 

Only it quickly became apparent that she was looking for something more than just a drink or two to take the edge off. He'd watched her go through bottles of spirits as if they were water, until she was so drunk she could barely breathe. The first few times it happened he'd gamely carted her back to their room. After that he'd started leaving earlier, unwilling to watch her deteriorate as the night went on. Lately he's stopped accompanying her altogether. He pays the serving girl a weekly stipend to make sure she doesn’t drown in her pint glass.

Coward that he is, he hasn’t said anything about it yet. He came so close to losing her in the Fade. He can still remember the shock of hearing her volunteer to stay behind, and worse, that terrible second when he thought the Inquisitor might actually take her up on it.

He closes his eyes now, remembering:

 

_-"Once again Hawke is in danger because of you, Varric."_

In the swirling green mists of the Fade it was impossible to tell which direction the voice came from. He’d darted a quick glance around the perimeter anyway. No use. It might as well have been coming from inside his own head.

_"You found the red lyrium. You brought Hawke here."_

“Just keep talking, Smiley,” he’d muttered under his breath. They had to be close to the rift by now. _Just a few more steps_ , he’d told himself. Then they’d be back in the real world, where he and Hawke could laugh about this over drinks at The Herald.

In the end he was half right. It wasn’t long before they’d spotted the rift. But he hadn’t counted on the thing that towered between it and them.

“How do we get by?” Alistair asked, staring up at the demon's monstrous bulk.

“Go,” Hawke said. “I’ll cover you.” And Varric’s blood had turned to ice. 

“No.” Alistair shook his head. “You were right. The Grey Wardens caused this mess. A warden must-“

“A warden must help them rebuild,” she’d snapped. “That’s your job. Corypheus is mine.”

Quiet laughter filled his ears. Far above him, a thousand eyes were shining in the dark. The small part of Varric that wasn’t frozen in horror, helplessly watching as his best friend attempted to sacrifice herself to a spider the size of Halamshiral, had registered that _of course_ they’d find a way bring the subject back to their favorite topic. After all, they’re only stuck in the fucking Fade, balls deep in demons. What better time or place to resume bickering over the _Maker blasted_ wardens- 

But the Inquisitor had turned to them, her face implacable. She’d looked at them both, and then down at him, and Maker only knows what she’d seen there, but for a fraction of a second her gaze had softened. Or maybe he’d only imagined it. When she looked back up at them her expression was as cold and hard as marble.

“Alistair,” she said.

And the sound of that name had put the breath back in his body, set the blood recirculating through his veins. _Not this time,_ he’d thought, his heart pounding _. Not today._

“Right,” the man said, swallowing. “Good luck. I’ll keep it off you.” He’d hesitated, had reached out and put his hand on Hawke’s shoulder. “Be well, Marian.”

“No,” she’d said as he turned away, her eyes wide. “Alistair, wait!“ 

_"Did you think you mattered, Hawke?"_

From the look on her face, Varric knew he wasn’t the only who heard it this time. 

_"Did you think anything you ever did mattered?"_

“We have to move,” the Inquisitor said, drawing her staff. “We won't get another chance.”

 _"You’re a failure,"_ the voice gloated _, "and your family died knowing it."_

Varric didn’t wait to be told twice. He’d grabbed Hawke’s hand and started running, pulling her bodily towards the breach. He didn’t look back, but he heard it when the cry rang out behind them.

“For the Wardens!“-

 

Varric opens his eyes.

The Inquisitor was right, he concludes, shame coursing through him. The man had deserved better. From him, if nothing else.

He looks back at Hawke. Her face has gone slack, and she is muttering something unintelligible into the pillow.

“Hawke,” he says, grasping her shoulder. She doesn’t stir. He gives her a shake, gentle at first, and then harder when she doesn’t respond. “Wake up. You’re dreaming.”

At last her eyes snap open. She looks up at him, and for a second her gaze is perfectly blank. Then her eyes widen, and she sits up, staring around the room. “No,” she moans, leaning forward to press her wrists over her eyes. “Maker’s breath, not now.” 

“Whoa there,” he says, reaching out a hand to support her. There is a light sheen of sweat on her forehead, and her skin has a greenish cast. “Are you going to be sick?”

“I’m fine,” she says. She pushes back her hair with trembling hands, turns to give him an weak grin. “Just recovering from a long night.” He hears her suck in a deep breath, watches as she runs a hand across her brow, composing herself. “Do you know,” she says conversationally, “I believe that bartender friend of yours may be trying to poison me?”

“Cabot is nobody’s friend,” Varric says. Sitting back in his chair, he eyes her critically. “Maybe you ought to give that place a break.”

“And let him think he’s succeeded?“ She raises an eyebrow. “I refuse to give him the satisfaction.”

“Just for a night or two,” he presses.

She shrugs. “You know me,” she says, her smile lopsided. “Mother always said that if the Circle’d only had a tavern they’d have had to post Templars to keep me from breaking _in_.”

He tries not to let his disappointment show. “She was a good woman, your mother,” he says, leaning away to rifle through the papers on his desk. Trading contracts, copies of the minutes from the most recent Council meetings, and of course, the ever present pile of bills. He’ll say this much for the Merchant’s Guild; the world may be falling to pieces around them, but they’ll be haggling over their cut right up until the bitter end. He picks one up at random. “Did I ever tell you about my mother?”

“The inestimable Lady Tethras?” Hawke says, her voice going cautious. “You may have mentioned her once or twice.”

It’s a shipping manifest. He studies it for a minute. “She never got over life in exile. Drank herself to death.” He pointedly doesn’t look at her.

She is silent for a minute. “Varric…”

He sets it back down in the pile and stands up, dusting off his armor.“I’ve got to get going,” he says, still avoiding her gaze. “Adaar wants an extra patrol down in the Hinterlands. Not sure when we’ll get back.”

“You’re leaving now?” she says, blinking at him. “Hang on, I’ll grab my kit-“

“No.” He hesitates for a second, then lets the lie roll off his tongue. “It’s nothing serious. I told the Inquisitor you were busy.”

“Oh? That’s good of you,” she says, and he is surprised to catch a hint of relief in her voice. She burrows back down into the bed, pulling the heavy blankets up under her chin. “Take care of yourself,” she says, closing her eyes. “And if I’m not here when you get back, don’t wait up.”

“Sure,” he says, slinging Bianca over his shoulder and turning away. “Sleep well, Hawke.”

…

It takes them three days to track the beasts back to their den.

Varric's no woodsman, but even he can tell that there is something wrong with these wolves. Their ribs jut out from their sides, but they ignore the placid rams and hares that should be their prey. Their eyes gleam with madness. 

Still, he takes no pleasure in killing them.  _Why couldn't it have been spiders_ , he thinks, loading a bolt into his crossbow. _They don't yelp when they get hit_. 

Nights around the camp fire are quiet. The Inquisitor makes a habit of turning in early, and the Seeker is not exactly his preferred choice of company, a feeling he strongly suspects is mutual. Blackwall (or Rainier, or whatever it is they’re supposed to call him now)  barely speaks to anyone anymore. Varric chalks this up to the fact that the man is still stuck in the same self-flagellating shame spiral he’s been percolating in ever since the Inquisitor had to haul his ass out of a Val Royeaux jail cell. Personally, Varric does’t give a nug’s left nut what crime the man committed all those years ago. It seems obvious that in the intervening time he’s made a sincere attempt to redeem himself. Not to mention, what a story. An inveterate bullshitter himself, he can’t help but be impressed at the level of commitment required to pull it off. But the old soldier seems resolutely determined to continue wallowing, rebuffing all of Varric’s attempts to draw him out of his funk, until Varric finally gives up and lets him stew in it.

Its not until the end of the third day that he manages to get the Inquisitor alone.

They’ve cleared out the den, killed the demons they found squatting in it, and have set up camp for the evening. Blackwall has trudged off a nearby stream to clean and dress the carcasses, and the Seeker has retreated to her tent to meditate, or pray, or whatever it is she does when she’s not chasing down bears and stabbing books.

The Inquisitor is sitting on a log by the fire, staring down at the rippling green energy emanating from her hand. She frowns, and gives it a shake as he sits down beside her.

“Does it bother you?” he asks.

“It’s nothing I can’t handle,” she says. She turns to look at him. “What’s on your mind, Varric?”

“About Hawke,” he says, and watches with misgivings as her face closes up. “I wanted to thank you for what you did back there, in the Fade,” he says. “I’m sure she will too, once she’s had time to think it over.“

“I didn’t do it for her,” the Inquisitor says.

“Whatever your reasons were,” Varric says, “I’m grateful.”

The Inquisitor sighs, and leans in toward the fire, drawing in her shoulders. “I read your book, you know,” she says. “After you introduced us. Figured it would give me some context.” Her mouth tightens. “But I must say, I’ve found it difficult to reconcile the woman who joined us with the hero from your tales.”

That stings. “Look,” he says, “I know she’s not what you expected, but give her a chance-"

She shakes her head. “The book did make one thing explicitly clear,” she says, her voice wry. “She’s obviously very important to you.” 

"Of course she's important to me," Varric says, bristling. "She's the Champion of Kirkwall."

“I think it’s been a long time since anyone called her by that title,” she says.

He looks away. “She’s been through a lot,” he mutters.

"Haven't we all?"

He has no answer for that.

She looks down at the mark again, opening and closing her fist. “Every so often one of our company would get that same look on his face. Like he can't taste the ale anymore.” She stretches out her hands toward the flames, turning them over. “It’s a common enough affliction among mercenaries. Especially the older ones.”

He knows he shouldn’t ask, but he does anyway. “What happens to them?”

She pulls her hands back, rubs them together. “They start looking for bigger fights," she says. "Anytime we saw action you'd see them out at the front, leading the charge. They’d run right up to the meanest looking bastard on the field and attack.” She grins. “I imagine it must be pretty terrifying, fighting someone who’s not afraid of death.” Her grin slips away. “But it’s dangerous to follow them,” she says. “They stop caring about the risks, the consequences. The only thing that drives them is the need for the next battle. And one day,” she says, turning back to face him, her eyes serious, “they pick one they know they won’t win.”

Varric is abruptly aware of the taste of fear in his mouth, bitter and acrid. The Nightmare’s quiet laughter echoes in his head. “You don’t know her,” he says, trying to to shake off his unease.

“Maybe I don’t,” she acknowledges, pulling herself up. “But regrets have a way following a person,” she says, brushing the dirt off her breeches. “It’s something we’ll all have to face eventually.”

“Whatever you say,” Varric says, turning his face away.

The Inquisitor looks down at him. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry,” she says, her voice low. “I wish I had known her, back in Kirkwall. Maybe then I’d see what you see.” 

She walks back to her tent.

Varric stays sitting by the fire, leaning in closer to the glowing embers. Closing his eyes, he lets the heat rise in waves over his face. But the warmth of the flames does nothing to abate the lingering chill of her words.

After a few minutes there is a noise to his right. He looks over, and sighs.

“She is right, you know,” Cassandra says, settling herself on the log across from him. “Perhaps not about everything. But about the book.”

“Seeker,” he says, his eyes still on the fire. “Remind me, are we on speaking terms now?”

Cassandra is silent, but she doesn’t leave. For awhile the only noise is the crackling fire and the sound of the wind in the trees.

“After Orlais,” she says at last, “many wrote stories about me, as well.”

“Yeah, I read some of those back when I was trying to break into Orlesian romance serials,” he says. “Waste of good ink, if you ask me.”

“I did not.”

Varric grins. “Now that you mention it, I do seem to remember one particular novel. What was it called?” He taps his fingers against his chin. “Something like ‘An Ancestral Passion’.” His grin widens at her involuntary grunt of disgust. “As I recall, it had a very unusual interpretation of your ‘struggle’ with the dragon-“

“Enough,” Cassandra says, her face flushing a dull red. She glares at him. “I only wished to say that perhaps I understand the position your friend is in. It is not easy to live under the weight of a legend.”

“You seem to have done well enough for yourself,” Varric says, turning back to the fire.

“Have I?” Cassandra says, staring into the flame. “It took me many years to win back my name from that woman. Even now I wonder which one of us history will remember.”

“Tough break, Seeker,” Varric says, shrugging. “A lady riding a dragon isn’t the sort of thing people tend to forget.”

"Yes," Cassandra says, turning to him, her eyes glowing amber in the firelight. “That is what I am trying to tell you."

 There is a beat of silence, and then Varric winces as he catches her meaning. "Come on, it was a narrative device!” he protests. “You think people wanted to read about the time the Champion and her family spent a week slogging through sixty miles of hot swamp’? And yeah,” he continues, "maybe I took a few additional creative liberties here and there, but Maker’s balls, she already had the Templars, the Chantry and _you_ after her. “ He glares at her. “If they'd known the truth, it would have been even worse-"

"Peace," Cassandra holds up a gloved hand. "I believe I know why you told the story as you did," she says, staring closely at him. 

“Sure you do,” Varric mutters, looking away.

“Better than most, I suspect,” she says, her voice surprisingly gentle. “The question is,” she continues, “does Hawke?"

Varric opens his mouth to respond, then closes it. “Hawke knows what she needs to know,” he mumbles, rubbing his neck.

Cassandra makes a noise that falls somewhere between a grunt and a sigh. But when he glances back at her he can see her gaze is tempered by something suspiciously close to pity.

“Talk to her,” she says. She hesitates, then nods toward the Inquisitor’s tent. “If it truly is as she says, you may not have much time.”

….

It is well past midnight by the time they get back to Skyhold. In the dark, Varric stumbles through the brambles, cursing as the thorns catch and pierce his skin. Once in his quarters he strips down to an undershirt and long johns, tossing his tunic across his chair. He pulls the leather band from his hair, places it on the nightstand, and turns to the bed.

And there is Hawke, a dark lump nestled under the covers. She must have only just returned, for the candle by her head is still putting off a faint curl of smoke. He lights it, and sits at his desk, thinking.

In the flickering candlelight her face is pale against the linen of the pillowcase. He reaches out with one thumb, stroking the curve of her cheek.

Against his will his mind transports him back to the chambers of his family’s old Hightown estate. He recalls leaning over another bed, another body lying prone before him, smelling of sour wine and sweat as he wipes her brow, spoon feeds her broth, and reads aloud from the pages of a story he will never publish. That was a long time ago, years before he met Hawke. But tonight the memory is as insistent and raw as when he was 25 and standing over the freshly packed dirt of his mother’s grave.

He turns away from the bed, rubs his face with one hand.

He is tired. The journey back from the Hinterlands has been long and arduous. And a part of him wonders just what in the Void he thinks he’s doing. Andraste’s tits, is he really going to take relationship advice from _Cassandra_? The woman whose notions of courtly love are lifted wholesale from the pages of a novel he’d penned primarily as joke on a friend? (Aveline had always sworn he would regret writing it, he remembers suddenly. He’s pretty sure this wasn’t the form she’d envisioned her vengeance taking, but all the same, it figured that she would eventually be proven right. She usually was.)

He and Hawke get along just fine as things are. True, he has begun to sense a certain degree of ambivalence from her regarding the way he’d played fast and loose with her legacy. But if it was really bothering her, wouldn’t she have said something? Why force the issue now?

And more to the point, he considers ruefully, what would he even say if were he to wake her? Words, ostensibly his livelihood, are failing him tonight.

If it were a story, he thinks, the hero would wake her with a kiss.

But Varric’s no hero, not in this story or any other.

So in the end he climbs carefully into the bed beside her, turning his back to hers. With one arm he reaches over to snuff out the candle, plunging the room into darkness.

Better to let her sleep, he thinks, stifling a yawn as he settles his head into the pillow. Whatever he has to say will keep until the morning.

…

But it is not yet morning when he wakes up.

The room is still dark, the window black. Blinking in confusion, it takes him a few muddled seconds to register what has woken him.

The spot by his side is empty.

He sits up. As his eyes adjust, he can see that she hasn’t gone far. He can just make out her shape huddled at the foot of the bed, her arms wrapped tightly around her knees.

“Hawke?” he says, his voice rough from too little sleep. He fumbles with a match, burning his fingers and swearing before he manages to get the candle lit. “Are you alright?”

She doesn't answer. Alarmed, he rises and walks to the end of the bed. “What’s wrong?” he asks, bringing one hand up to her forehead. Her skin is ice cold, and damp to the touch.

She looks up at him then, her eyes red rimmed. “Alistair,” she says. “He’s gone.”

Varric’s heart sinks in his chest. He slowly retracts his hand. She’s just having a bad night, he tells himself, trying to drown out the chorus in his head that’s shouting _not this, not again_. Memory loss can happen for any number of reasons. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything. “He’s been gone for weeks now,” he says, careful to keep his voice calm. “Since Adamant. Remember?”

She turns away, shaking her head. “You don’t understand,” she says. “I’ve looked and looked, but I can’t find him anywhere.”

Varric’s blood chills. “What do you mean, you’ve looked?” he says.

Her mouth twists in frustration, she turns to glare at him. “What was I supposed to do?” she says. “Go to sleep every night and pretend it wasn’t happening? Sit back and watch while the demon toys with its prey?”

He stares at her, aghast.

“He was still alive,” she says, the anger draining out of her voice. She curls back over her knees. “I couldn’t just abandon him.” Her face crumples. "Not when it's my fault. My blood, Varric.”

“What are you saying?” he says, half hoping he’s heard her wrong, that he’s somehow misunderstood.

She looks away. “I’ve been helping him fight it. In the Fade.”

Varric’s breath hitches in his throat. He shakes his head. “You’ve had a lot to drink,” he starts to say.

She flinches. “I know,” she says, shrinking back. “And I’m sorry. But it was the only way I could stand to face it, night after night.” She wraps her arms tighter around her knees. “It’s hard to sleep when you know what’s waiting for you on the other side. I tried, believe me.” She stares down at the bedspread. “I’d lie awake for hours and hours, my mind racing. And all I could think was that he was out there fighting for his life, while I was lying here in the dark, too frightened to close my eyes.”

Varric sinks down into the chair at his desk. “How…” he starts, and then trails off. He tries again. “How did you even find him?”

“He was singing,” she says, closing her eyes. “If you listened hard enough you could hear it from anywhere in the Fade.” She hums, pressing one hand to her lips. “Always the same song,” she says, with the ghost of a smile. “He finally remembered the words.”

Varric reaches out and takes her hand.

She opens her eyes. “I’ve searched for three nights now,” she says, her face drawn and pale. “There’s no trace of him.”

“And the demon?” Varric asks.

“I don’t know,” she says. “It may be dead, or wounded and hiding, or simply biding its time.” Her voice has a desperate edge to it. “For all I know, this may just be another one of its games.”

Varric rises to sit by her side. “Hey, it’s okay,” he says, rubbing her back. “You’re okay.”

“Am I?” she says, staring down at her shaking hands. “I’ve spent so many nights fighting against its tricks and visions that I’ve begun to feel quite mad.” 

He puts an arm around her shoulders. “You’re not crazy,” he says, his voice gentle. “But you should have told me sooner.” _And I should have been paying closer attention_ , he chastises himself silently.

She leans against him. “Dwarves don’t dream,” she mumbles into his shoulder.

“So what,” he says. “Chuckles is always harping on about how thin the Veil is here. And it’s not like there’s any shortage of fade rifts. Shit, I almost fell into one by accident the other day.”

She raises her head to fix him with a skeptical look.

“I’m serious,” he says. “I was lining up a shot when the Seeker did that headlong charge thing she does.” He snorts. “Knocked me flat on my ass. If a rage demon hadn’t popped up to break my fall, we’d most likely be having this conversation in the middle of one of those creepy green lakes.”

That gets a weak laugh out of her. She lets her head rest against him, and closes her eyes. “I didn’t want you there,” she whispers.

“What, finally sick of me after all these years?” he says, mock hurt, as he strokes her hair.

“Don’t be daft.” She leans into his touch, and he savors the feel of her hair under his fingers, the rise and fall of her ribcage against his side. 

“It takes your fears, Varric," she whispers, "your hopes, all your secrets and shames and twists them up together until you’re not sure what’s real anymore.” She swallows. “Sometimes I was afraid I would never wake up. But when I did,” she says, turning her face up to his, “I knew it was real because the room smelled like you, with all your things in it, things I didn’t know well enough for it to take for itself. And every night I told myself that I couldn’t do it again, that I wouldn’t go back.” She shivers, pulling the blanket tighter around her shoulders. “But in the end I always did. “

“Why?” Varric asks.

“Because I woke up, but he never will,” she says.

Varric pulls her close, until her head falls against his shoulder, her face pressing into his neck. And for once he doesn’t say anything at all, not even when he feels her body start to shake.

They sit like that together for a long time, until the castle begins to come alive with the small, ordinary sounds of people stirring, sloughing off the dim memories of their dreams like dead skin. At long last the sun rises, suffusing the windowpane with soft light. And through the open sill Varric can hear the the clink of tin, the scrape of cutlery, the rustle of bed linens, the murmur of prayer, all the little morning rituals that separate the waking world from the shadowlands of the Fade.


	4. July

 

The shape of the castle is changing.

These days Varric is never quite sure what he’s going to find when he opens a door. There are armories and storerooms where he remembers only dusty chambers. Bustling practice grounds have replaced the piles of mossy stone and rotting wood that used to litter the courtyard, and a new tower has sprung up at the castle’s flank. Sometimes he thinks if he blinks he’ll find his own quarters repurposed as a storage closet.

The mood is changing, too. The Great Hall hums with restless energy, nobles circling each other like tigers, tension palpable beneath every pleasantry. Even the Herald’s Rest is not immune. What was once a jovial tavern has become a place for plans, somber faces, and curt words that leave much unspoken.

Overnight, it seems, the castle has been overrun by soldiers. There are more of them every day; patrolling along the walls, loitering in the halls, or else sparring beneath the relentless summer sun. He can hardly walk outside without wincing at the glare coming off helmets, swords, and breastplates, as hot and insistent as a finger in the eye.

How did they manage to round up such an army, he wonders. The camp below the castle goes on for miles, the smoke of their fires drifting up to the ramparts, writing a message in the air. _Soon_ , it says.

Everywhere he looks, people are preparing.

Everyone seems to know something is coming, but nobody knows what.

And still, more and more volunteers pour through Skyhold’s gates. Not just refugees now, but hardened men and women in battle-scarred armor, grim elves in glittering mail, dwarves with axes strapped to their backs, qunari with their faces painted red and black, strange wild men bearing mauls the size of cows. People the likes of which Varric has never seen come from far and wide to pledge their service to the Herald of Andraste.

One day, a familiar face walks through with them.

….

The afternoon sun is almost blinding, picking out every blade of grass in sharp relief. Hawke and Varric take refuge under a shady tree by the main gate, a bag of apples safely stowed between them, watching soldiers train in the practice yard.

“I’d be worried if I were you,” Hawke says, staring appreciatively at Cassandra’s lean muscled form. “She’s clearly a formidable woman.” She bites into the side of her apple with a loud crunch.

“Who, the Seeker?” Varric snorts. “That hopeless romantic is more of a danger to herself than anyone else.” He leans back against the trunk, buffing an apple on his chest. “It’s Aveline I have to worry about now.”

“Why?” Hawke asks around a mouthful of apple, casting a surprised look down at him.

“I sort of promised her _Swords and Shields_ was gonna be a one-off,” he says sheepishly.

“Did you really?” Hawke says, her eyebrows raised. “How did she manage that, I wonder.”

“She swore if I ever wrote another word about her ‘heaving bosom’, she’d have the Guard revoke Corff’s liquor license.“

Hawke grins, and bites off another piece. “My, my. Base corruption in the ranks of the City Guard-”

She stops dead, her eyes going wide and the apple falling out of her mouth. Varric turns to see what she’s looking at. Then both of them are up, running and shouting like a pair of lunatics, leaving a trail of confused and alarmed faces in their wake.

Hawke gets there first, and takes a flying leap that knocks Isabela flat on her ass, startling a nearby soldier into drawing his sword. “Put that thing away,” Varric snaps at him as he barrels past, and then he’s on top of the enthusiastically flailing pair.

“All right Hawke, give her her some space,” he says, and when she reluctantly complies he takes the opportunity to shoulder her aside and plant a long, lingering kiss directly on Isabela’s surprised mouth.

“No fair!” he hears Hawke cry out behind him, and she pushes him away to steal a kiss for herself. That gets an entirely different sort of look from the soldier, Varric notices.

Isabela pulls back, laughing, her brown eyes sparkling. “Missed me, did you?” she says, dabbing at her eyes. “I suppose it has been rather a long time.” She sniffs, smiling, and wipes her hands on her breeches.

She looks good, Varrric thinks. There are new lines in her face, but more from laughter than sorrow. And she’s found herself a terrific new hat.

“Not that I’m not glad to see you, Rivaini,” he says, “but what are you doing this far inland? Shouldn’t you be out patrolling the high seas?”

“Why, haven’t you heard?” Isabela says, striking a dramatic pose. “I’ve become an agent of the Inquisition.”

“What?” Varric says, his eyebrows shooting up. “Since when?”

“Since right now,” Isabela declares. “Or, soonish, anyhow,” she amends. “I’ve a meeting with Sister Nightingale tomorrow to discuss the details. ” She smiles. “Though if I’d known you two were the welcoming crew, I’d have joined up ages ago.”

“But what of piracy?” Hawke says. “Have you really given it up?”

“There’s hardly any sport in it now, what with demons running amok,” Isabela says, frowning. “These days most everything fit to hoist a sail is full of refugees fleeing from someplace or another. As for the rest…” Her expression turns grim. “I’ve warned the Armada off running shipments for the Venatori, but there’s always some fool with an eye out for a quick payday who thinks he knows better. Then they spend a week out at sea with a hold full that blasted red lyrium,” she says, her lip curling back in disgust. “By the time we find them, the crew’s half mad, or sick, or worse.” She shakes her head. “No cure for the poor bastards. Nine times out of ten we have to scuttle the damn things. It’s a bloody waste.”

“What’s become of your ship?” Hawke asks.

“I left Dobbins in charge of the _Crow_ ,” Isabela says. “He’s got a good head on his shoulders, even if it is shaped a bit like a turnip. I expect they’ll get on well enough without me.”

“Oh,” Hawke says. Varric can see her biting her lip. She turns an apple core around and around in her hand. “And Fenris?”

“Fenris?” Isabela says, her eyes flicking from Hawke to Varric in confusion. “You mean he’s not here?”

Hawke’s face falls.

“No,” Varric says.

“He disappeared the day after you did,” Isabela says, looking at Hawke. “I haven’t seen him since.”

Hawke jerks up to stare at her. “What?”

Isabela shrugs. “I don’t know what you said to him the night you left Estwatch,” she says. “But the next morning he was furious with me.”

Hawke blinks. “With you?” she says. “Why?”

“Haven’t the foggiest,” Isabela says. “He wouldn’t say what had happened. Just kept ranting about how irresponsible I’d been, back in Kirkwall. You know,” she says, shooting Hawke a guilty look. “With that whole Qunari business. Going on and on about you having to clean up my mess.”

“Well, she did,” Varric says.

Isabela turns on him. “Yes, _thank you,_ Varric, I’m aware.” She looks back at Hawke, her face sheepish. “We can all agree it wasn’t one of my better decisions.”

“You might be underselling it a bit there, Rivaini.”

“But you were fine,” Isabela says plaintively. Varric snorts. “I mean, yes, there was that dodgy moment when the Arishok stuck you with his sword, but you got right back up again, didn’t you?”

“Right,” Hawke says, hunching inward, her hands over her stomach. “Takes more than a sword to the guts to keep me down.” There is something off about her voice, but when Varric turns to look at her, her face is blank.

Isabela continues on. “The funny thing was, we’d talked about that, years ago, after I’d come back. He found me in the Hanged Man, and went all glow-y, shouting at me at what a terrible thing I’d done, how I’d almost got you killed and everyone else in Kirkwall with you. And I told him he was right, that I’d cocked the whole thing up royally, and then we got pissed, and I thought, well,” she grimaces, and shrugs. “I suppose I thought we’d put it behind us.”

“Maybe he had a change of heart,” Varric suggests.

“Maybe,” Isabela says, rubbing her forehead with the back of one hand. “We had a terrible row about it. After he left, I waited a week before setting sail.” She looks up at Hawke. “When he didn’t turn up, I assumed he’d gone after you.”

Hawke says nothing.

Isabela tilts her head, her brow furrowed. “Hawke,” she says slowly. “You were fine, weren’t you?”

The question hangs in the air between them. Hawke’s gaze remains frozen on the ground.

Varric can feel his chest constrict as he recalls the aftermath of that fight. He remembers how her breath had come in sticky gasps, the wet red mess of her lower abdomen exposed in the candlelight, how she had refused to let anyone but Merrill touch her. How even while her blood was slowly drying on the soles of his shoes, some part of him was already thinking, _Maker’s balls, what a story_.

There had never been any question in his mind that he would write about it. It was the night she’d killed the Arishok, the showdown that had cemented her legacy as Kirkwall’s Champion. That it was also the closest he’d ever come to losing her only made him more desperate to put pen to paper. On the page he could transform violence into glory, chaos into victory. Hawke would be fine; she would be _better_ than fine. In a week she would ride through the streets of Hightown decked in laurels and wreaths of bright embrium, and no one would ever know about the hours of blood, curses and prayer that had followed, because he would not write it.

But looking at her now, he’s getting the distinct feeling that the narrative he has constructed is shifting before his eyes. Was it possible that he'd missed something that night?

The idea that there could be some part of Hawke’s story he doesn’t know about is deeply unsettling, like finding a hidden room inside a house he built himself.

Something flickers in his memory, the barest hint of a possibility.

Then Hawke looks up, and it is gone.

“Of course I was,” she says, tossing back her head and giving them that old look, the one that meant something terrible or wonderful was about to happen, if only they’d follow her to the next tavern. She reaches out to wrap an arm around Isabela’s waist. “Aren’t I always?”

… 

Isabela insists on dragging Hawke off for the night. “You’ve had her all to yourself for months and _months_ ,” she says, scowling down at him, one arm draped around Hawke’s shoulders. Varric makes a show of reluctance, but eventually lets them go, smiling at their exuberance.

He heads back to his room, settling himself into his chair with a mug of hot tea and a thick sheaf of trading contracts. His desk is a mess, covered with bills, uncorrected proofs, letters from his editor, and of course, the assortment of random junk that Hawke accumulates wherever she goes. Sometimes he wonders what exactly she’s planning to do with yet another pair of torn trousers, especially considering that thanks to his financial oversight she is currently rich enough to buy herself a new pair every day of the week for several years. But he knows she takes a scavenger's pride in collecting these dubious treasures. And besides, every now and then she’ll come back with something truly impressive, like an only slightly bloodstained bottle of Antivan brandy dating back to the Blessed Age. When faced with such bounty, the trick, Varric had discovered, lay in never asking where she’d found it.

As he pushes aside an old lace collar, a set of grubby dice (weighted, he notices, shoving them in his pocket for later), half a dozen figurines, and a pouch full of what appear to be pebbles, he uncovers a leather-bound book. Upon closer inspection he is startled to find it’s an edition of _Tale of the Champion_.

It's the hole in the cover that jogs his memory. It’s Cassandra’s copy, the one she’d given him for Hawke to sign.

As he leafs through the pages, he can’t help but notice that certain sections are more dog-eared than others. It never fails to amuse Varric that the hard-nosed, obstinate Seeker is such a sucker for romance. How many times has she read the part where Hawke and Fenris reunite, he wonders. Probably enough to recite the thing by heart. On a whim, he places the book spine down and lets it fall open on his desk.

To his surprise, the page it reveals is not the love scene he expected, but the confrontation between Hawke and the Arishok. He leans forward in his chair, examining his own prose with narrowed eyes.

He’d been particularly proud of this section, he remembers. His editor had raved about it. But reading it now, he can’t shake the feeling that it’s wrong.

Varric rubs his forehead, cursing under his breath. This is why he makes a point of never reading his work after it’s been published. It’s years too late to fix any mistakes.

Still, he finds he is reluctant to put the book aside. He tells himself he’ll just read to the end of this chapter.

There is something comfortable about seeing all their names together on the page. It feels a little like going home.

At some point he must have nodded off, because he wakes with a start when Hawke bursts in, the door banging against the wall.

“Hey,” he says, rubbing his eyes and yawning. “You’re in late. Or should I say early.” He blinks. “What time is it, anyway?”

“I have to go.” She marches to the end of his bed, squats down, and starts rummaging around underneath.

“What?” Varric lifts his head, peeling off the page that’s somehow got itself stuck to his cheek.

“I’ve spent too long here already,” she says, pulling out her pack. She drops it on the foot of the bed, scattering a fine cloud of dust over the coverlet.

“Wait,” he says, sitting up. “You’re leaving now? As in, right now?”

“It’s as good a time as any,” she says, her jaw set in a hard line. She yanks the bag open, peers inside and frowns, evidently dissatisfied by its contents.

Varric opens his mouth, then closes it, warily eyeing the ferocious zeal with which she is currently tearing through her belongings. “Did something happen with Isabela?”

“No,” she says, staring down very intently at her bedroll, as if willing it to wrap itself tighter.

He squints at her. “Is it what she said about the Elf?” Hawke gives no indication that she has heard him. “You know, I could have my people track him for you. He’s never been that great at blending in-“

Her shoulders hitch. “Don’t,” she says sharply, then adds, “Please. Not for me.”

Varric knows break-ups can be rough. When you loved someone and it didn’t work out, it went without saying that the best, healthiest thing you could do was erase every trace of them from your life and never speak of them again. Maybe get a crossbow, while you’re at it.

But she’s obviously still torn up about it, and he’s not sure her pack will hold together much longer if she keeps cramming things into it like that, so he finally gives in and asks the question he’s been avoiding since she turned up at Skyhold. “What happened between you two?”

She stops packing, her hands going still. “I made a mistake,” she says, not looking at him.

He waits for her to elaborate. When she doesn’t, he frowns. “Come on. It couldn’t have been that bad.”

Hawke finally does look up at him then, blinking slowly as if she’s only just realized he’s there. “You always see the best in me, Varric,” she says, with a crooked smile. ”Even when it isn’t there to see.” She picks up a pair of socks, examining the toes for holes. 

Varric takes a closer look at her pack. Below the haphazard layer of clothing and junk, he can see rations, a waterskin, an old battered compass. She’d been prepared for this, he realizes. Planning it, even. He winces. He knows she’s spent half her life on the run from templars, darkspawn, and Maker only knows what else since leaving Kirkwall, that she’d probably slept with this very same bag tucked under the four-poster bed of her Hightown estate. But it still hurts to know that the whole time she’s been here, she’s had one foot out the door.

“Where will you go?” He asks.

“Weisshaupt, I suppose,” Hawke says, sitting down on the bed and crossing her arms. She rubs her elbows, and he wonders if she is cold. “It’ll be a mess now, with the rest of the Wardens banished.”

“You don’t have to, you know.”

“What, and trust that pack of blight-addled fools to sort themselves out?” She snorts. “Not likely.”

“I meant, you could stay here.”

Hawke looks down at the dusty coverlet, smoothing out the wrinkles with one hand. “It’s not a good idea, Varric.”

“Why?” he asks, his heart pounding in his chest.

“Too simple, for one thing,” she says. “What sort of ending would that make for your story?”

“A happy one,” Varric says, gazing at her.

“Since when do you write happy endings?” Hawke counters, picking up another sock and regarding it critically. “I read the last chapter of _Hard in Hightown_ , you know. I can only imagine what poor Cassandra is in for with _Swords and Shields_.”

“I could start,” he says. “Maybe with the right inspiration.”

She shakes her head. “You must have me confused with some other Hawke,” she says, shoving the offending item into her bag. “I’m only capable of inspiring drunken poetry, and the occasional act of misguided heroism.”

“You’ve inspired a hell of a lot more than that,” Varric says. “I should know. I wrote a whole damn novel about you.” He picks up the book, tosses it toward her. “In case you forgot.”

Hawke sits very still. “How could I?” she says, looking down at the book on the bed. “No one will let me.” 

“What?”

She looks up at him.“I’ve read your book, Varric,” she says quietly, “same as everyone else. I know what you think of me. But I’m not that person anymore. I don’t know if I ever was.”

“What do you mean?” He’s starting to get that dizzy feeling again, like ground is shifting beneath his feet.

Hawke shrugs. “I don’t know,” she says, picking up the novel. “I suppose it was comforting, at first. To know that no matter what sort of trouble I got into, you would take it, smooth it out, and reshape into something brave and heroic.” She flips through the pages. “Only the longer it went on, the less I recognized the woman in your stories. Worse,” she says, “she started to become real to people. To me, even. Whenever I had a choice to make, I'd think, well, the Hawke in Varric’s story wouldn't do that, only the Hawke in your story didn't _exist_ , so it shouldn't have mattered.”

She closes the book, and raises her eyes to his, looking almost apologetic. “Before long it was her people expected, her they thought they were getting when they came looking for help. And the trouble is, Varric, there's really only ever been me.”

He starts to protest, but she shakes her head.

“But even that would have been alright, I think,” she says, looking back down at the book in her hands. “Only, somewhere along the way you started believing it too. In her, I mean.”

“What?” he says, staring at her.

“Is it mad, to be jealous of yourself?” Hawke asks. “It feels mad.” She lays the book on the bed beside her. “When I first came here, I told myself I could play the part of your heroine. This isn't Kirkwall, after all. I thought if I pretended hard enough, none of them would know any better.” Her mouth twists. “But it doesn't work. It never has. Sooner or later people are disappointed.”

“Is that what you think,” he asks, astonished. “That I’m disappointed in you?”

“Aren’t you?” As she turns toward him the shadows pool around her eyes, and he is struck by how tired she looks. “I’m not much like the woman from your book, Varric. I can be petty, and cruel, and terribly selfish. I think,” she hesitates for a second, “I think there's a part of me that enjoys killing people. I got so good at it, you see.”

He gets up from his chair, and walks over to sit next to her on the bed. “You had to,” he says. “Shit, we all did.”

They sit in silence, the book on the bed between them.

Varric has always assumed Hawke knew why he’d written her as he had, that it was just one of the many things that went unsaid between them in order to help him preserve his carefully maintained illusion of platonic friendship. Maker’s balls, he thinks, wasn’t it obvious? Even _Cassandr_ a had noticed.

But it’s clear he owes her some kind of explanation. He leans forward, rubbing his face. “Look,” he says, “I had a rough couple of years before you showed up. I’d lost some people who meant a lot to me.”

He picks up the book, looking down at the cover. “Athenril kept bragging about this hotshot refugee kid she’d picked up, fresh out of the Docks. I figured I could offer you twice whatever she was paying and still turn a profit.

"But when I saw you that day, in the market,” Varric says, trailing off. Even after all these years, the memory still makes him catch his breath. “You were so bright.” He shakes his head. “Nothing in Kirkwall stays that bright for long. I’d seen it happen so many times by then, how the world tears people down, hollows them out from the inside. One day, the light goes out behind their eyes.”

Somewhere back in Hightown is a portrait of a young mother holding two small children in her lap. Thankfully, Varric hasn’t seen it in years.

He shrugs. “I wanted you to stay bright.”

He looks down at the book in his hands. “The trouble was, there wasn’t much I could do about it. I can’t summon spirits, heal wounds, or rip out a man’s heart with my bare hands. I’m no good with daggers, and I can’t swing a sword to save my life.” Varric shoots a wry glance at his crossbow. “Truthfully, I’m not even that good of a shot. Bianca does most of the work.” He pauses, then continues more quietly. “But I knew I could write your story."

"And I thought that if it was good enough, if I could make people feel a fraction of what I felt that day, looking at you, then it wouldn’t matter if we won or lost. They’d remember our names. They’d remember you.” He puts the book back down, runs a hand over the cover. “If I could do that, then no matter what life threw at us, we’d get the last laugh in the end. We’d beat the whole damned world, you and me.”

He feels her hand slip over his.

“You and me against the world?” She says, resting her head against his shoulder. “I don’t know, Varric. It sounds like rather long odds.” She looks at him out of the corner of her eye. “Would you take that bet?”

“Down to my last coin,” he says.

Hawke laughs softly. “Liar,” she says, lifting his hand to her mouth and kissing it.

He looks at their interlocked hands. For a moment he lets himself feel the full weight of everything he is about to lose. Ten years of might-have-beens, what-ifs, and maybes hang between them translucent as glass, and twice as fragile. Ten years of waiting for the right words, the right time. 

He sighs, and releases her hand.

“Come on,” he says. “I’ll walk you to the gate.”

She gets into her armor, the old battered furs and leathers hanging off her lanky frame. When she has her pack and her staff, he takes her hand, and together they walk out into the courtyard.

Outside the sun is just beginning to rise. The empty garden looks different in the early morning light, all the plants closed up, waiting for the sun to warm them into opening. All but one. Varric blinks. The snarled bramble has finally blossomed, erupting into a riot of deep red flowers.

“Wait,” he says, stopping abruptly. “Don’t move.”

He walks over to the tangled mass of vines. Taking out a small penknife, he cuts one long, blooming tendril, for once not minding the thorns that prick his skin. Back at her side, he winds it around the wrist of her glove, careful not to let it break her skin, or bruise the delicate blossoms. When he is finished, there is a red wreath around her wrist.

She looks at it, and for a second he is afraid she might not understand, or worse, that she does and he’s miscalculated. Then a radiant smile breaks over her face.

“A favor?” she says, delight in her voice. She lifts up her hand. “From you?”

“From me,” he says. “Will you wear it?”

“Always,” she says. And she leans in and kisses him.

He closes his eyes, pulls her face against his. He can feel her cheeks are wet, or maybe it’s his, he doesn’t give a damn, his hands are in her hair and he kisses her eyes, her lips with a desperate urgency, for he knows as sure as the stone beneath his feet that he will never get the chance again. He is shaking, and he thinks that if this was a story he was writing he would end it here, so that they would stay trapped in this moment forever.

But he is powerless to do anything but watch when at last she pulls away.

“Did you mean it,” she says, her eyes fixed on him, “about giving the story a happy ending?”

“Yes,” Varric says, partly because it’s true and partly because he would say anything to keep her there looking at him, to delay the inevitable moment that she turns to go.

“Then write us one,” Hawke says, smiling that same half crooked smile. The sunlight catches her face, washing out all the lines and shadows, and in that instant she looks young again, and free, so beautiful it makes his bones ache. “For her, and for me too.”

…

He loses track of time, after that. The day passes in a blur, and it’s almost evening before it occurs to him to look for Isabela. He searches everywhere, irritation gradually giving way to concern. At last he makes his way to the Nightingale’s tower, only to find he is too late.

Trying to get anything out of Leliana is like attempting to extract blood from a stone. The most she will say is that Isabela had come to her requesting an immediate assignment, and had departed at once after receiving it.

Rivaini has never been big on goodbyes, but this is a bit sudden even for her.

Varric finds himself at a loss. Both Hawke and Isabela are gone, taking their secrets with them. He may never know what spurred them into flight.

But he’s willing to bet there is someone who does.

He deliberates for a long time about whether or not it’s the right thing to do. It feels a little like a betrayal. But he still wants to give her that happy ending.

And so in the end, he does what he always does: picks up his pen and writes.

…

Varric is walking a little slower than usual today. They’ve just returned from the Storm Coast, not his favorite location under the best of circumstances, and even less so when the Inquisitor’s got them hunting for a place called Dragon Island.

A muscle in his leg tweaks, and he winces, stopping to massage the calf. A camp of Red Templars and a full grown dragon, and he goes and slips on a damned rock. It figured, he thinks, scowling. The Inquisitor’s never met a cliff face she didn’t want to scale.

He must look worse than he thought, because people in the courtyard keep staring at him and whispering.

“Whats the matter, never seen a dwarf with a limp before?” He grumbles, scaring a wide eyed serving girl into scurrying off.

As he enters the garden, his mood lightens. He’s picturing an ale, a hot meal and a hotter bath, but he’ll settle for a night of sleep in an actual bed. He pointedly does not look at the dry tangle of vines that is slowly receding from the castle wall.

But when he gets to his room, he stops short.

His door looks like someone’s gone at it with a battering ram. The planks have splintered, the twisted iron hinge barely holding together the remaining pieces. Scraps of broken wood litter the stone walkway.

He sighs, and steps through. “Took you long enough.” 

“Where is she?” Fenris says, glowering at him from across the room.

The ridiculous spiky armor is gone, Varric notices, replaced by a nondescript set of brown leathers. He looks healthy, like he’s gained some weight, and his face has lost the pinched, haunted look he’s had for as long as Varric had known him. Life outside Kirkwall has agreed with him, Varric thinks with surprise.

“Gone,” he replies, sitting down at his desk and pulling off his boots. “Pretty sure I mentioned that in the letter.”

“You neglected to mention that she’d been sleeping in your bed.”

 _Shit_. “Where’d you hear that?” Funny, Varric doesn’t _think_ anyone in Skyhold wants him dead.

“Do you deny it?” The elf’s mouth tightens.

He might, if he thought he stood any real chance of getting away with it. Instead, Varric shakes his head. “She slept here,” he confirms, nodding toward the bed. “‘Slept’ being the operative word.”

Fenris glares at him. “Why should I believe you?”

Varric can feel his patience fraying. “Since when do you care where she sleeps,” he snaps. “The way she tells it, you’re the one who walked away. You had to know there could be others.”

“I do not care what she has been to others,” Fenris says, his eyes narrowing. “I care what she has been to you.”

Varric blinks. That wasn’t the response he’d expected. Rubbing his aching leg, he mulls over how much to say. He doesn’t want to lie to the elf, but neither is he prepared to give a full answer. 

“A friend,” he says finally. As far as explanations go, this one is somewhere between woefully inadequate and a lie by omission, but it’s the best he can offer. The rest is between him and Hawke.

Fenris seems to accept it. He picks up a small figurine of a dragon, one the many items Hawke left behind that Varric has not yet been able to bring himself to clear away.

“Why did you not write earlier,” he says, rubbing it with his thumb. 

It’s nothing Varric hasn’t asked himself a hundred times, but he doesn’t like it any better coming from the elf. Sure, he could have written Fenris earlier. Maybe he and Hawke would have reconciled. Maybe she would have stayed, and they’d have moved in together next door. Maybe Bianca and her husband could come move in too, and wouldn’t that be fun?

“She asked me not to.” To hide his irritation he picks up his boot, giving it a shake. “Somehow she’d got the idea that you didn’t want to hear from her.”

Fenris carefully puts the statue aside. “How much did she tell you?”

“Just that you’d left.” A rock the size of a gold piece tumbles out, and Varric gives a satisfied grunt. “I got the feeling that wasn’t the whole story though. Don’t,” he says quickly, holding up a hand as Fenris opens his mouth. “Whatever it is, she didn’t want me to know. It’s between the two of you, you understand?”

The tension goes out of Fenris face, and he nods. “Thank you,” he says, sitting down on the bed.

For some reason this makes Varric even angrier. “Don’t thank me,” he says, before he can stop himself. “If I could have taken her from you, I would have.”

Fenris starts, and looks at him hard. Varric meets his gaze, trying not to bristle under his scrutiny. At last the elf sighs, shaking his head. 

“Why _did_ you write to me?” he asks, raising an eyebrow at him.

Varric shrugs, rubbing the back of his neck. “One of us deserves a chance to be happy, right?”

“Perhaps,” Fenris says, looking down at his hands. He stands up, pulling his pack over his shoulder. “I should be going.” He hesitates. “Will you show me which road she took?”

“Sure,” Varric says. With an inward sigh, he reluctantly pulls his boots back on.“But we have to make one stop first.”

“Where?”

“The Herald’s Rest,” he says, rising up from his chair.

“What, the local tavern?” Fenris says, frowning.

“Yeah,” Varric says. He stretches out, wincing again at the persistent ache in his leg. “And I hope you brought coin.” He grins. “You owe a friend of mine a drink.”


	5. August

_This is how it ends._

 

In the morning the tall grasses are velvety with dew. They stick to her shins like wet ribbon as she walks through the field. The air is cold and damp and she smells the smoke of a distant campfire mingled with the sweet scent of crushed grass beneath her feet. On her left, a thick bank of fog rolls in soft as a lover’s whisper over the hills. On her right, the trees rise up in a black line against the dim light of the dawn, their branches creaking and sighing in the breeze. Through the gaps in their trunks she can see the ruins of an ancient marble wall gleaming white as bone.

Hawke scans the horizon with weary eyes. For days now she has been sleepwalking through these woods, and though fatigue pulls at her limbs with each step, she is keenly aware of the need to keep moving.

The Nightmare has found her again.

Last night was bad enough that this morning she is still wary of her surroundings, still checking and double-checking that the road hasn’t gone topsy on her, that the sky is still above her head, the rocks and dirt solid beneath her feet. The ghosts of her dreams crowd her head with sharp, half whispered words.

_Lothering, Kirkwall, Skyhold, Weisshaupt. Where will you run this time, Hawke?_

She closes her eyes, bites the inside of her lip hard enough to break the skin. She can’t afford to let figments and shadows spook her into blind flight. This is the third morning she’s caught smoke in the wind. Whoever is out there is close, and getting closer.

She pulls the hood of her cowl up over her head, and turns left.

The fog closes around her, a diaphanous veil that obscures the grassy hills. Tiny droplets swirl through the air with every breath she takes, clinging to her hair, her lashes. She blinks, wiping her face with the back of one hand, and squints. It is brighter inside than she expected, the light refracting through the drops, twisting here and there into queer shapes she can just make out through the corner of her eye.

Something large and dark teases at the edge of her vision.

Hawke starts and turns in a quick circle, her fingers going to her staff and her eyes straining. There is nothing but endless billowing grey. She pulls her hood close around her neck, and walks faster. Soon the only sounds she can hear are her own muted footfalls and the steady rise and fall of her breath.

The air grows colder, and her skin prickles beneath her armor. The hills fade in and out, the landscape rendered formless and indistinct, and yet she cannot shake the feeling that she has been here before. Doubt flutters like a bird in her ribcage. Is she awake or asleep? Up ahead, she thinks she sees a faint flickering of green-

_You are lost, and soon you will fade._

Hawke drops down in the grass where the air is clearer, works the fingers of one hand deep into the earth. With the other she grips the staff at her back.

Her first thought is of fire. It was the first spell she’d ever mastered, but even before that it was still magic, how Father had taught her to take the flint and strike the steel until it sparked, to breathe life into the tinder, coax the embers into flame. It took her weeks to grasp the trick of it, to train her hands to make light in the dark. Something had been lost the day she learned to do it the other way. Long after she’d come into her magic, she still kept a chunk of flint in her pack, the tool of a ritual no less sacred for all that she no longer required it. 

Now she hesitates. This is an old forest, the Veil worn gossamer thin. She lets go of the staff, reaching into her pack for the old notched stone instead. Clutching it tightly in her palm, she takes short breaths until her heartbeat steadies.

She stays low, stepping forward on light feet, her body tense and poised for flight. Through the fog she thinks she can hear someone whispering, hissing out syllables in an unknown tongue. As she grows closer the sound deepens into a familiar hum. Soon enough she can make out the bright edges of the Rift, crackling and popping with green sparks. Strange lights pulse on the other side.

Something is waiting for her there.

Quietly, carefully, Hawke steps around through the grass.

She does not breathe until she reaches the trees.

...

Under the cover of the branches she collapses against the wall. She presses her forehead to the ancient stone, cold and smooth. _Real_ , she thinks, trembling with relief as sweat trickles down the back of her neck.

The wind rustles through the leaves overhead, and she smells smoke again, stronger this time. She lifts her head, turning to stare out into the woods.

From somewhere behind the trees, a twig cracks.

The first arrow hits before she has time to pull up a barrier, punching through the leather of her armor to bury its head in the meat of her left shoulder. Hawke gasps out in pain, sucking her breath in through her teeth as her magic crackles into place over her skin, and rises up, trying to reach higher ground. But on the second step her legs melt away beneath her like spun-sugar left out in the rain, and she sinks back down against the wall, her arms heavy at her sides.

She reaches out to touch the shaft of the arrow with numb and trembling fingers. They come away sticky, and she catches the rotten-sweet scent of deathroot mixed with something earthy and unfamiliar.

Her barrier flickers out.

 _Ah_ , she thinks, blinking,  _I suppose that would be magebane, then_.

The leaves are still moving on the trees, but the sound is muted. Staring up at the branches, Hawke has the feeling of being very far away, like looking through the wrong end of a telescope.

From far off in the distance she can hear the faint echo of footsteps and voices. Carver and Bethany, no doubt, come to rouse her for the morning chores. She lets her head fall back until her cheek rests against the stone. It feels wonderfully soft.

They won’t find her here, she thinks drowsily. Not even Father knows all her hiding places.

She closes her eyes.

…

The first thing she sees when she opens them are the wide, arching branches of the oak tree above her. Only something has split behind her eyes, because even as she registers that her hands are tied fast to its trunk, her mind tells her simultaneously that this is the same great white oak that grew behind their farmhouse back in Lothering, that if she squints she will see Carver’s bare feet dangling from its branches, Bethany’s dark braids sailing out behind her on the old rope swing. She reaches out instinctively to restore her connection to the Fade, only to be hit by a wave of nausea, and she breathes in hard through nose, trying to keep from heaving. Dimly she registers that there is something funny about her legs, they are stiff and solid as stones underneath her. Her head feels funny too, light and unmoored, almost as though she’s back on Isabela’s ship.

But she is not so impaired that she cannot recognize her attackers. She knows immediately from their armor who they are, and what they will do. Their leader is speaking, probably to her, but the only words she ever bothered to learn in Tevene were the filthy phrases she and Isabela bullied Fenris into teaching them, and she doesn’t want to give them any ideas.

“Good day, Serah,” she hails him. “I regret to inform you that someone appears to have replaced your helmet with an Orlesian shit pail.”

He backhands her swiftly across the face.

Pathetic, she thinks, blinking back stars. Why, she’s met chantry sisters who could hit harder. She’d tell him so, too, only her mouth is suddenly full of blood. She spits it somewhere in the vicinity of his boots, and leans back against the trunk, examining her captors.

Her eyes are drawn to an ornate dagger the leader wears at his waist. There is something odd about the blade: it is a dull black that seems to take in the light rather than reflect it. Beyond him, she can make out their camp on the opposite side of the clearing. She counts three marksmen, two gladiators, another mage, and a heavily armored skirmisher, eight of them altogether including her short-tempered friend. Not exactly encouraging odds, but she’s been dealt worse hands before. The trouble is that every gambit she can think of hinges on _not_ being strung up like one of Old Barlin’s scarecrows around the trunk of this tree.

She tests her bonds. They hold fast.

 _Well, that’s it then_ , she thinks, with a sense of resignation that feels oddly akin to relief. They surely won’t make the mistake of keeping her alive long enough for the poison to wear off.

Perhaps she ought to be embarrassed, Hawke muses, to live through so much only to fall to men such as these. It’s a bit anti-climactic, certainly. And for a second before she can stop she catches herself thinking, _Varric will be so disappointed_. But it won’t do to think of him now, not like this, so she quickly suppresses that particular notion.

After all, she tells herself, it could be worse. There is nothing at stake, no one left to save. She will die here alone, and not a single soul will suffer for it.

It won’t make for much of a story, but then again, the truth rarely does.

For all her newfound stoicism, Hawke is surprised to discover that her body is not ready to give up, still determined to survive, fighting like a beast caught in a trap it cannot escape. She marvels at the resilience of the dumb animal instinct for self-preservation, even as she wills her heartbeat to slow.

She turns her gaze upwards, admiring the way the trees bob up and down in the breeze, the sunlight filtering through their branches in dappled pools of light and shadow. She remembers lying on her back, with Carver at her side and Bethany’s head on her stomach, the three of them looking up into the dense canopy of trees in the wood behind their little house in Lothering, and she swallows, trying to fix that image in her head so that it will be the last thing she sees.

Her captors start the ritual. The leader steps forward with the dagger, she doesn’t want to look (Carver’s hair rustles in the breeze, Bethany is humming a song she learned in school) doesn’t want to see what they are going to do with it, but she feels it when he makes the first cut down her side, her breath coming short as the knife scrapes against her ribs. He is not so thorough as the Arishok, the blade stops above the bone, but the strange metal burns like ice on her flesh, and it is all she can do to keep from crying out. They mean to bleed her out slowly, she realizes, one cut after another, and at first she is afraid that she will linger on, Maker knows for how long, and she almost panics, Bethany’s sweet brown head slipping away like ripples in a pond. But then they start pulling from her, and after that it’s easier, she doesn’t have to be afraid of the pain, she knows it won’t last long.

The song of the blood is harder to ignore.

She can hear it singing in her veins and out from her sternum. It warms through her like strong liquor, and she cannot help a shiver of delight at the realization that all the old power is still there, ready and waiting for her to reach out and grasp it. She has a vision of herself standing victorious, a Champion again, and for a second all the hairs rise up on the back of her neck and her breath hitches in her throat.

But in the next instant she lets it rush out, sags back against the tree.

There are worse things than dying, she reminds herself.

So she hums a song whose words she can't quite remember, closes her eyes (Bethany takes her hand in hers, Carver stirs in his sleep) and tries not to shudder when she feels the edge of the knife pressed into flesh of her throat. It is not personal, what they are doing. It will be over soon, this grim business of surviving.

_“Are you tired, my Hawke?”_

Her eyes snap wide. The image of Bethany and Carver splinters, bright pieces warping into fragments.

 _“Shall I sing you to sleep_?”

 _No_ , she thinks, fear dashing over her like cold water. _Not you._ It shouldn’t be able to find her here. She’s wide awake, no Rift in sight. Her eyes flick back to the mage. He increases the timber of his chant, strengthening the pull that is leaching her life force away. _Maker’s breath_ , Hawke thinks with a dawning horror. _They are summoning it_.

 _“A pity you’ve grown so docile_ ,” the Nightmare whispers, close enough now that she can feel its greed, its terrible hunger like hot breath on her neck. “ _I enjoy a show of resistance from my hosts.”_

“Dreadfully sorry,” Hawke says, and is relieved to hear her voice come out steady even as her heart hammers against her chest. “But I’m afraid you must have the wrong address. I’m not hosting anything this evening.” She twists her arm against the rope, trying to slip her hand through without drawing attention from the mage. “You might try the next block over _._ ”

 _“Such a peculiar sense of humor,”_ the Nightmare purrs. _“Do you think anyone will miss it?”_

Hawke strains against her bonds in earnest now, all semblance of apathy abandoned.

 _“Though perhaps it would be sweet to keep a part of you in this form with me_ ,” It muses. “ _Not all the way dead but not quite living either, my dear.”_

Once again Hawke sees herself standing victorious, wreathed in a corona of blood and flame, and with a terrible sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach she realizes what the Nightmare intends to do. The gorge rises up in her throat, fear and disgust mingling with a hot flash of shame. What it wants to make of her is not, after all, so different from what she has almost made of herself.

Green sparks begin to appear in the sky. All around her she feels the Veil vibrating with strain. The mage holding the knife to her throat stutters in the middle of his chant. He takes a step back, looking unsure. High above him, the rising wind shrieks through the tree branches.

She can see his resolve wavering, pride warring with doubt and fear. Under different circumstances, it might even be amusing. She will die in this forest, she thinks with bitter satisfaction, but she won't be alone.

And suddenly, she has an idea that leaves her breathless. 

Quickly, Hawke gathers the last of her energy. This is quite possibly the worst plan she’s ever come up with, she reflects wistfully, and for one instant she feels a sharp, ludicrous pang of disappointment that there is no one else here to appreciate it.

She bites her lip, forcing herself to concentrate. If she can pull this off, it will all hinge upon the timing. She must hold back, wait to release the spell until the moment just before the demon takes possession of her body.

The poison is still blocking her connection to the Fade. But this is an old forest. And fire has always been her greatest strength.

She remembers her father’s hands in the dark, showing her how to call to the flame, to kindle the blaze between her fingers. How he’d cupped her small palms within his own larger ones, the orange light flaring up between them. _Well done, Marian_ , he’d said, smiling down at her.

It was the first spell she’d ever mastered.

It seems fitting that it should be her last, as well.

Closing her eyes, she reaches out one final time. All she needs is a scrap of mana. The tiniest pebble will do. Take that flint, strike it against the steel of her will, until the dry tinder of her body catches flame. And then she will burn, and the Nightmare will burn with her, bright and clean until there is nothing of them left but ash-

There is a flash of light so bright she can see it through the red-black of her eyelids.

...

The first thing Hawke notices when it clears is that the hot, insistent touch of the Nightmare is gone from her mind, and that the tension has evaporated from the air. When she opens her eyes she can see that the color of the sky has returned to the benign blue of a late-summer afternoon.

The second thing she notices is that the knife at her throat is wavering.

Upon closer inspection she can see this is because the mage holding it is staring in fascination at a wet, red hand that has wrapped itself firmly around his wrist. That hand is attached to an arm, and the arm, Hawke registers with no slight astonishment, is protruding out from a cavity in the mage’s chest.

The mage looks back up at Hawke, and for a moment the two of them are mirror images of wordless surprise.

Hawke clears her throat and leans forward, careful to avoid the point of the blade. “I think,” she says, her voice hoarse, “that he wants you to drop it.”

Behind his absurd helmet, the mage blinks. Then the black knife falls, landing soundlessly in the grass at her feet. The hand lets go, and retracts itself through his chest with wet squelching noise. The mage crumples into a heap, and Hawke is left staring up into the face of his assailant.

“Hello Fenris,” she says.

He stares at her, breathing hard.

“This _is_ a pleasant surprise,” she says, plastering what she hopes is an affable smile on her face. “You’re looking...” she swallows, “well.”

Actually he’s looking a bit like something out of a nightmare, what with his greatsword spattered in gore and his right arm bloody past the elbow. And… she squints.

“Your hair is different,” she says accusingly.

Fenris peels off one blood soaked glove and tosses it to the ground. “Four years,” he says, wiping his blade on the dead mage’s back and sheathing it, ”and that is all you have to say to me?” His tone is dry, almost flippant, but his dark eyes are fixed intently upon her face.

“Has it really been that long?” she says, as if she is not painfully aware of the number of days that have passed since he left her, as if she cannot feel the weight of each year lodged like a rock in her throat.

His eyes drop to her side, and he spits out something harsh and guttural in Tevene.

“That’s a new one,” she says. “You’ll have to teach it to me-” she stops short. He’s only just shown up and already she’s slipping back into old habits. This isn’t Kirkwall, she reminds herself. After this is over, they’re not going back to the Hanged Man to drink ale, joke about close calls, and teach each other increasingly inventive obscenities. _He didn’t come here for you,_ she thinks. Suddenly she’s feeling a bit lightheaded, and she leans back against the trunk to try to keep herself from shaking

Luckily Fenris doesn’t seem to have noticed. He drops to his knees, and Hawke stiffens, but before she can muster a coherent objection he has pulled up the hem of her linen undershirt, revealing the long, angry cut down the side of her ribcage. She hears him inhale sharply.

“Oh, it’s not as bad as it looks,” she says, wiggling the toes of her left foot experimentally. She’s fairly confident that she can feel at least one of them move, which she chooses to take as a good sign. “You should see the other guy.”

Fenris ignores her little joke, which she also chooses to take as a good sign. He’s busy pulling something out of the pack at his side. It turns out to be a small jar of some sort of paste, which Hawke is tempted to ask is for his new slicked back hairstyle. Only before she can, he starts applying it to her wound with, it must be said, a rather disorienting gentleness. The sensation of being handled with care is a little overwhelming, especially coming from someone who by all rights ought to loathe the very sight of her. She breathes out as the salve numbs the pain into a dull throb, forcing herself to look away.

She has always had a fascination with his hands. For one thing, they could do all sorts of things her hands couldn’t, like ripping out men’s hearts and swinging a greatsword and opening the ancient jars of pickled eggs Corff kept stocked behind the bar. And for another, he happened to be very good at using them in certain intimate situations. Hawke had often privately thought that it was a little unfair just how good Fenris was with his hands, given that he also had a preternatural capacity for patience and a seemingly endless willingness to harbour a grudge. These three traits had the tendency to combine in dangerous and unexpected ways, especially if they’d been drinking, or if he was feeling particularly adventuresome that night.

The memory of just how dangerous those nights could be comes over her suddenly, and she shivers under his touch.

Fenris stops. “Am I hurting you?” he asks.

“I’m fine,” she says, clenching her jaw. “As I said, it’s nothing serious.”

 _Keep it together,_ she tells herself. It’s no good going all soggy and sentimental just because he’s got his hand stuck up the front of her shirt.

But his calloused fingers brush against her upper rib, and Hawke swallows, arching back against the tree. If he keeps touching her like that, she’s going to unravel into his arms like a ball of yarn.

“Fenris, stop,” she says, the words coming out a little sharper than she intends.

He does stop, staring up at her questioningly.

“You don’t need to fuss over me,” she says, shifting away from his hands as much as the ropes will allow. “I am sorry about this very unexpected reunion, I know it must be troubling for you to see me,” she can feel his eyes on her, hear him rising up to his feet but she keeps her gaze fixed on the ground, “but if you’d be kind enough to cut me down, I can patch myself up and be out of your way-”

And then he takes her face in his hands and kisses her, and all the words run out of her head like water through a sieve.

It is a very thorough sort of kiss. By the time he breaks away, she has moved through shock and disbelief to a state of dazed acceptance.

“I have scoured every inch of these woods, searching for you,” he says. His eyes drop back to the wound at her side, and his face goes hard. “And yet I was nearly too late. Forgive me-” he cuts off abruptly, his mouth twisting as if he does not care for the way the words taste on his tongue.

“Forgive you,” Hawke echoes, still reeling from his kiss. “What, for saving me?” His proximity is making her dizzy. Or perhaps it’s just the blood loss. “How did you even know where to find me?”

“Varric,” he says curtly, unsheathing a short dagger from the scabbard at his side.

“I should have guessed,” Hawke mutters, trying and failing to appear cross. “After he swore to me he wouldn’t contact you-”

“He said I was to remind you of his promise,” Fenris says as he slices through the ropes that hold her. “Something about a happy ending.” Hawke slips free, rubbing her wrists. “Can you walk?”

“Of course,” she says, struggling to rise. “Or possibly not,” she amends, as her legs give way beneath her.

He ducks his head under her arm, careful not to put pressure on her side, and guides her out of the clearing. Hawke’s eyes widen as they pass the scattered corpses of the Venatori soldiers, several of whom seem to have had the majority of their innards violently removed.

“That’s quite an interesting look,” she remarks, as they pass one draped in what appear to be the remnants of his large intestine.

“I was in a hurry.”

“Apparently.”

They stop to search the tents, or rather, Fenris does while Hawke watches. He finds a couple tinctures of elfroot, which she sucks down greedily, a water skin, some dried provisions, her staff, the remainder of her armor, and her pack. It’s obvious from the first glance that the Venatori have been through it; most of her belongings are missing, and what little remains is in disarray. The absence of one item in particular has Hawke hissing out curses under her breath. They must have dumped it somewhere along the way, she thinks, and for a second she is sorely tempted to go and kick the deceased mage in the teeth.

Then she gets a better idea.

Fenris raises an eyebrow at her request, but he moves the corpses without complaint while she concentrates on re-establishing her connection to the Fade. With the healing potion restoring her energy, and the poison thinning in her blood, it doesn’t take long. After a few deeply drawn breaths, she is fervently relieved to feel the mana flowing through her once again. Slowly she expands her senses, reaching out in search of a spark. She opens her eyes.

The bodies burst into a searing tower of flame.

“Was that necessary?” Fenris asks, squinting against the glare.

“Yes,” Hawke says, not taking her eyes off the fire. She watches the flesh crackle and split, the blood boiling up in rivulets through the skin. She can still feel a vague echo of its song, all the rich energy shimmering and fizzing away into nothing like bubbles in a glass of champagne. “I’d gladly leave them to rot, but the Veil is thin as cheesecloth here, and I’d rather not fight them all over again just because some demon fancied their skin for a suit.”

How long would it have taken for the fire to snuff out her life, she wonders. Would she have felt it as the flames seared her skin away, melting the soft tissues- her eyes, her lips, her breasts. Or would she have been long gone by then, her spirit purged by the Nightmare as it took possession of her remains.

She summons a handful of flame. It flickers just above her fingers, the heat tightening the skin of her palm. Swinging back her arm, she tosses it into the inferno, watching as the fire surges higher.

Out of the corner of her eye she sees Fenris making a disapproving face.

“Oh, don’t give me that look,” she says, rounding on him. “We’re not on a ship anymore. I can throw as many fireballs as I like.”

“We are in a _forest_ , Hawke,” Fenris points out, his voice rising in exasperation. “If the fire spreads, it may pose a significant threat to our continued well being.”

“You worry too much,” Hawke mutters, but she lets the tower of flame dwindle down to a modestly-sized bonfire.

She is suddenly ravenous. Fenris comes to sit next to her, and together they make a quick meal out of the strips of dried meat they’ve looted from the Venatori.

When the feeling has returned to her legs, he offers her his arm, and they set off into the trees. He leads her out of the woods and up a low hill, where they stop to set up camp for the night.

Her tent is gone, along with most of her gear. Fenris is kind enough to cede her his bedroll. The late-summer air is still warm enough to sleep comfortably outdoors, so she lays it out over a patch of sweet clover and dandelion.

It feels a little strange to disrobe in front of him after all these years. But her shirt is stuck to her side in a matted layer of sweat and dried blood, and his own clothing is hardly in better condition. They take turns passing the water skin back and forth, using a damp rag to scrub away the worst of the blood and grime.

Her side aches like she took a kick from a raging bronto, but the cut down her ribs is shallower than she initially feared. Fenris is solicitous almost to the point of being irksome, insisting on helping her dress her wound, and cobbling together a makeshift poultice from the supplies and herbs they’ve scavenged.

“I have managed to take care of myself for the last few years, you know,” she complains, fidgeting impatiently under his care. “It’s barely more than a scratch anyhow.”

He ignores her, wrapping strips of fresh linen around her ribcage to hold it in place. When he’s done, he hands her a patched but clean looking shirt which she gratefully pulls over her head.

The light fades, and the sky goes bluer and bluer until they are bathed in it, the deep purples and indigos stretching out overhead and nothing for miles but the soft silhouettes of the trees and hills rolling outward into the distance.

The trouble with evenings like this, Hawke thinks, is that she always mistakes them for a promise of wild starry nights and cool, sweet mornings, of new beginnings and unimagined adventures yet to come, when really they meant less than nothing, merely the empty pageantry of the cosmos repeating itself ad infinitum.

But her traitorous heart is whispering that against all odds she is alive, and he is alive, and they are here, together. And whatever fresh sorrows the morning may bring, for tonight, perhaps, that is enough.

He lies down at her side. Together they watch as the stars come out overhead.

“I’m still curious as to how you managed to find me,” she says.

“Varric put me on your trail at Skyhold. From there, I tracked you to Weisshaupt.”

She brightens. “Does that mean you’ve seen my dog?”

“Yes,” Fenris says, with a slight smile. “He is looking very well for a beast of his advanced years. I flatter myself that he was pleased to see me again, too.” He sighs, rubbing his neck. “Your brother, on the other hand...”

“Don’t take it personally,” Hawke says, plucking a dandelion and chewing on the end of the stem. “His face always looks like that.”

“He said he knew it was only a matter of time before I showed up, and that if I hurried I might be able to catch you before you did something even stupider than usual.”

“Hmph,” she says, crossing her arms. “So much for family loyalty.”

”I was surprised,” Fenris says, glancing over at her. “The so-called Wardens he had with him barely looked capable of defending themselves against the fortresses’ larger specimens of vermin, much less an army of darkspawn.”

“Oh,” Hawke says, wincing. “Well, there’s not many of them left, I’m afraid.”

“What happened?”

She removes the flower from her mouth. “It had already gotten to most of the senior Wardens before we arrived,” she says, pulling it to pieces in her hands. “At that stage they’re little more than ghouls anyway. I did try to save as many of the newer recruits as I could. Only, as it turned out, there wasn’t much I could do for them.” Her mouth twists. “You see, they had told them it was part of the initiation.”

Far up above her the stars shine with a brightness that belies their distance. Out of habit she looks for Draconis, the rising dragon. In Kirkwall he had been easy to spot by his wings, which spread out over the city. She’s lost track of the number of times she’d found her way back from the Wounded Coast by following the stars in his crooked tail. But tonight the only constellation she can see is Toth, the man on fire, his body contorted in agony.

She shivers despite the warm night air. “But you needn’t worry,” she says, more to herself than to Fenris. “They’ll be alright now. I’ve led it away from them.”

He frowns at her. “What do you mean? Led what away?”

It’s not a story Hawke wants to tell. It’s far too long, not particularly heroic, and it certainly won’t have a happy ending.

“Fenris,” she says instead, “why did you follow me?” She hesitates, then continues. “After what happened between us, I didn’t think you ever wanted to see me again.”

He goes silent.

“It was... not kind,” he says at last. “To tell me as you did.”

“I know,” she says, her mouth suddenly dry. “I’m sorry.”

“For a long time I did not want to understand. Even now-” he stops, shaking his head. “I hate that you did it.” He looks at her with dark eyes. “I expect I always will.”

“Of course,” she says, swallowing. She had never imagined that he would forgive her. How could he, when she hasn’t yet managed to forgive herself?

“Still,” he says, taking her hand in his. “I should not have left.”

“Are you certain about that?” She tries to smile at him, but she can feel it going wrong around the edges. “I thought it was quite sensible of you, all things considered.”

“Sensible?” he repeats, blinking. “Maybe so. But I have had many years to consider the alternative. And I know you, Hawke.” His voice turns wry. “You are reckless to the point of foolishness, your sense of humor is eccentric bordering on deranged, you wield destructive and arcane forces with all the solemnity and discipline of a wilful child, and you shall never encounter a situation so hopeless that you cannot find a way to make it worse still simply by opening your mouth.” He pauses. “Yet for all that, I believe you are worthy of trust. And I do not wish to be sensible if it means being separated from you.”

Hawke stares at him in astonishment. “Maker’s balls, Fenris,” she says, when she can finally speak. ”That was either the nicest or the worst thing you’ve ever said to me.” The corner of her mouth curls up into a smile, a real one this time. ”I’m not sure whether I ought to be moved or deeply insulted.”

“You don’t have to decide right now,” Fenris says, bringing her hand to his mouth. “I should be happy to provide you with further evidence for consideration, if it will help you make up your mind.”

His lips are warm on the heel of her palm, sending a flush creeping up her arm. Reluctantly, she slips her hand out of his grip. “Everything I said back then,” she says. “It’s all still true, you know. You’d be better off walking away.”

Fenris sighs. “You will not be rid of me so easily this time,” he says dryly. He rubs a hand across his face. “Though perhaps I had better be sure. Have you any other dire secrets you wish to inflict on me?”

Hawke deliberates for a moment. There remains the small matter of the demon that is hunting her through the Fade. But she knows that if he thinks she’s in danger, he’ll only wind up sticking with her out of a sense of duty. For a man who’d apparently thought nothing of spending years squatting in a house full of corpses, Fenris could be quite funny about principles. If she’s going to start spilling secrets, there are ones more suited to her purpose.

"I haven't been faithful," she says.

Fenris turns to look at her again. "We swore no vows," he says slowly. Her heart is beating so loudly she thinks he must be able to hear it. "If you have come to prefer the company of another, I will not force my affections on you."

Hawke hesitates. Then she takes in a breath, steeling herself to tell the biggest lie she's ever told.

"But, then again," Fenris says, moving closer. "Here you are, alone." This time there is a distinct note of amusement in his voice. He gently brushes a lock of hair back behind her ear, his voice dropping low. "And I have it on good authority that you have missed me very much indeed."

The way he says it is a little too knowing. Abruptly, Hawke’s morose contemplation of her various failures is interrupted by a sudden and alarming suspicion.

“What do you mean by that?” she says, sitting up. “Has Carver been playing at head of the household again?” She shoots him a reproving glance. “You know you’re not supposed to encourage him. It only strengthens his delusions.”

“Lie still,” Fenris says, his eyes narrowing. “You will reopen your wound.” She reluctantly complies, and he bends over her, pulling back her shirt to check the dressing. When he is satisfied, he leans back on one elbow.

“Hawke,” he says, gazing down at her fondly. “Did you know that the Inquisitor has a Qunari mercenary advising her?”

How did Varric put it? _Well, shit?_

She squints up at Fenris, trying to gauge how much he knows, but his bland expression gives nothing away.

“Does she?” she says, bending her head to examine a bruise on her forearm in a way that she hopes is indicative of her sublime indifference toward the topic at hand. “How very open-minded of her.”

“In fact,” Fenris says, absently stroking her belt buckle with his thumb. “I was under the impression that you two were acquainted.”

“I suppose we may have encountered each other here and there,” Hawke grudgingly allows. She shrugs. “But then of course, one meets so many people on the road.”

“Ah, of course,” Fenris echos, nodding. “I should have expected as much from someone as widely traveled as yourself.” His voice turns wry. “Indeed, with so many such _encounters_ , it is a wonder you are able to keep track of them all.”

Hawke blinks. “Well,” she says, “I wouldn’t say there were _that_ many-”

“As it so happens, I met him myself.”

“Who?”

“Your friend the qunari.”

“What?” Hawke says, starting. “How?”

“There was a card game at the Herald’s Rest,” he says. “Varric insisted that we join in.”

Hawke’s eyes narrow to slits. “Of course he did.”

“It was rather odd though,” Fenris continues, lifting one hand to rub his jaw, frowning. “You see, as soon I introduced myself, your qunari friend started laughing so hard I feared he might topple out of his chair.” He looks down at her, his eyes glittering. “Can you think of any reason why he should find my name so amusing, Hawke?”

“Maybe someone told him a particularly funny joke just before you came in,” she suggests, privately thinking that what would really be amusing is if a tangle of rashvine were to find its way into a certain dwarf’s bed.

“It seems,” Fenris continues, tracing light circles around her navel, “that he had heard it somewhere before.”

“That _is_ odd,” Hawke says. Her belt buckle has somehow come undone, she notices. “Perhaps he knew another Fenris?”

Fenris blinks. “Another Fenris,” he repeats, his mouth twitching.

“I hear it’s quite a common name in the Anderfels,” Hawke says, inching to one side. His touch is making it increasingly difficult for her to concentrate, an advantage she suspects he is fully aware of. “Can’t throw a rock without hitting one, or so I’m told. And of course, you know what they say about traveling swordsmen,” she says, looking up to wink at him. “Why, I’ll bet he knows a Fenris in every port.”

“That is a most interesting theory,” he says, his fingers playing over her waist. “Would you like to hear mine?”

“Say,” Hawke exclaims suddenly, snapping her fingers. “I’ve just remembered!” She beams up at him. “He isn’t really a traveling swordsman at all. That's just his cover.” She lowers her voice to a dramatic whisper. “He’s actually a spy working for the Ben Hassrath.”

“Is he really?” Fenris’s eyes widen.

“It’s an open secret among the members of the Inquisition,” Hawke says, nodding solemnly. “Personally, I couldn’t stomach a man like that in my inner circle. Who could say what sort of outrageous lies he might be spreading?”

Fenris snorts.

“In fact, I should be wary of believing anything he told you,” Hawke continues, pretending not to have heard. “A qunari spy who claims to have had dealings with some other Fenris? It all sound highly suspicious to me.”

“Oh, I thought so too,” Fenris says, smiling down at her. “So I asked him where exactly it was he had heard it. And do you know what he said?”

There is a long pause.

WelI,” Hawke says at last, “If I had to guess, I’d wager he told you some cock and bull story about a night of passion with a mysterious and devastatingly beautiful woman.”

“Mmm,” says Fenris, running the back of his knuckles over her hip. “Something like that.”

“Just the sort of thing a spy _would_ say,” Hawke insists, twisting under his hand. “I wouldn’t trust a word of it, if I were you.”

Fenris looks thoughtful. “In that case,” he says, “I suppose I had better verify his story myself.”

And he leans in to kiss her neck, his hand slipping below the waistband of her trousers.

Hawke is determined not to provide him with any further amusement at her expense. No situation she can’t make worse by opening her mouth indeed, she thinks indignantly. But his soft intake of breath at the discovery of how wet she is makes her stomach flip, and what little resolve she has left rapidly melts away beneath his fingertips. His touch is slow and achingly light, until she cannot stop her hips from twitching up, one hand reaching out to clutch at his forearm.

She feels his laughter before she hears it. “Is there something you want, Hawke?” he asks, kissing the corner of her jaw. The sound of her name in his mouth in that particular tone of his, the one she thought she’d never hear again, makes her skin flush hot. 

He bites her earlobe, and she gasps. “ _Fenris_ -”

“There,” he murmurs, his mouth moving just below her ear. “You see? Exactly as he said.”

She rakes her fingers through his hair, mussing it. Then she grins. “How do you know I didn’t mean the other Fenris?”

He lifts his head to stare at her, hair half-falling over one eye.

 _Yes_ , Hawke thinks with satisfaction, _that’s much better_.

And then in one movement he has risen to his knees, pulling her legs up against his shoulder. Hawke lifts her hips impatiently as he tugs her trousers the rest of the way off. He holds her legs steady with one arm while his other hand goes to undo the laces of his breeches. She bites her lip as she feels his cock pressing hard against her inner thigh, pulse quickening in anticipation. But instead of entering her, he runs his thumb over her cunt until she moans in frustration.

“Fenris, _please_ -”

“Did you mean me, that time?” he asks, his eyes glinting down at her. “Or were you addressing the other Fenris again?”

She tries to twist away, but he has her legs trapped firmly against his bicep. Whistling cheerfully to himself, Fenris works slow, careful circles around her clit while Hawke writhes helplessly in his grip, stammering out a litany of increasingly incoherent entreaties. Only when she has lost the capacity for words entirely, her whole body flushed and pulsing like a star beneath his fist, does he finally relent.

“You know, Hawke,” he says, kissing her ankle, “If you wished me to fuck you senseless, you could simply have asked.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” she says between shallow breaths, closing her eyes.

She can feel his grin against her leg, mouth slipping down to bite her calf as he eases into her, so slowly she wants to scream.

“Tell me to stop, and I will,” he says, half a promise, half a threat.

Hawke’s eyes flutter open. “Don’t you dare,” she breathes, and, reaching up to bury her fingers in his hair, pulls his laughing mouth back down to hers.

...

In her dreams that night she is running through the woods, the flicker of distant torches bobbing like fireflies in the dark, while shadows of righteous men speaking holy words reach out to snatch at her feet. From up ahead she hears her father cry out a warning, and she leaps forward between a gap in the pines, tumbling out into the bright cornfields of Lothering.

The air is hot and buzzing with flies, the bounty of this year’s harvest left to wither on the stalks, and she had forgotten that it was rich, this land, how every summer the crops sprang up straight and tall as spears raised to the sun. But there is a new twist to the old miracle; while the tender stems were creeping forth from the earth, the dead things were gathering beneath their roots. This is the last year the corn will grow. When she turns to look she can see the Horde is already rising in a black tide on the horizon, come to make a robber’s feast of the rotting corn, the unshorn sheep, all the stragglers that couldn’t or wouldn’t leave this land behind, and for a moment she hesitates, her steps slowing.

But she hears her sister’s laugh peal out from somewhere ahead, so she keeps moving through the rippling field until the dry stalks part before her like a curtain and her feet touch down on the warm limestone of Kirkwall. The familiar smell rises to greet her like an old friend, the bitter smoke of the foundries mingling with the sea spray, and under it all the rank, coppery scent of blood, oozing up fresh from the alleys and gutters, or else old and dry underfoot, coming in wafts of rot that catch at the back of her nose. She sprints through the narrow streets, while behind her the sun glitters off blades and horn tips and the bronze fingers of the statues that hide their faces from the light. The crowd at her back is chanting her name, begging her to bless them with her Champion’s blood, and though she knows it would take every drop in her body and more to make this city pure again, she still hesitates. But she can hear her mother singing from around the corner, so she pushes herself ahead, ducking through a doorway and into the dusty halls of Skyhold.

The silence comes down on her like a cloak of thick black wool; itching, too hot, and so heavy it makes her long to be out in the fresh open air. Men and women whisper as she passes, half hidden in shadows as dark as the center of the eye, which drinks in light and reveals no trace of itself. At first glance they seem familiar, but when she looks she can see they are strangers, staring back at her with expressions that range from polite concern to thinly veiled contempt. Every time she looks back there are more of them watching, and from behind the black pinpricks of their pupils she can feel something peering out at her, unseen and unnoticed, a parasite hidden in their dreams. Her feet catch on the thick carpets and she staggers, her body crying out for rest, but she can hear her brother calling to her from beyond the corridor, so she keeps going, stepping through a heavy wooden door and down into a dim tunnel.

Its walls are decorated with frescoes of snarling griffons and long, serpentine black dragons locked in battle. The further it goes, the narrower it gets, until she has to stoop, her head brushing against the dusty beams. At last the passage opens into a room full of grey-faced men sitting around a low stone table. From the shadows Hawke watches as they grin and nod and chew their meat, dabbing at the juices that dribble from their lips with white cloth napkins, their knives streaked with red, and their forks piled high with the glistening offal. And all the while something is whimpering, high and thin but still audible beneath the tinkling of crystal, the delicate scratch of the tines scraping against exposed bone. Yet they carry on with their meal as if they cannot hear it, and when Hawke glances down she is unable to hold back a half-choked gasp of revulsion as she witnesses the true nature of their feast. The sound echoes through the room, and their heads snap around to stare at her, even the pitiful creature spread out on the table, cut open and cringing away from the sharp points of their silver cutlery, one wild blue eye swiveling up to meet her horrified gaze.

The grey men smile at her with wet, red mouths.

 _This is how it ends_ , they say.

Hawke backs away, scrabbling desperately against the walls for a door, a window, any way out, anything at all that will let her escape from the sight of that face, half devoured but still recognizable.

_This is how the hunt always ends._

Her hand finds a doorknob and with a sob she pulls her gaze away, and then she is out and running, through the weathered doorway, past her cousin’s tomb, and back into the woods once again.

This time there is no voice spurring her onwards, nothing but the hollow thump of her own heartbeat pounding in her ears and the Thing at her heels closer than ever before. She runs until her legs give out, and then she crawls, pushing through sharp branches that scratch and tear at her skin. Where drops of her blood fall, budding stems spring up from the ground, winding into a thick bramble of red flowers and black thorns that block the way behind her. She edges down on her belly through the briars, half-blind in the dark, trying to make herself small, quiet, hidden. But it finds her anyway, ripping its way through the tangled vines, and as she feels its jaws sink deep into the flesh of her side she sucks in a breath to scream-

-and in the space of that breath she suddenly understands that it is the same thing that has been hunting her her whole life, though it wears a different face each time it comes; the templars, the darkspawn, the wardens, a demon with a hundred eyes that gleam like quicksilver in the dark-

...

Hawke wakes up gasping and bathed in sweat. Fenris is holding her, rocking her in his arms until she can breathe again without shaking. When they pull away, she looks down to find they are both wet with blood.

Her wound has opened up again.

Fenris assembles the healing supplies they have left. Slowly, he removes the blood soaked poultice. She doesn’t look, but she hears his breath catch when it comes away.

“It did not look like this yesterday.” She feels his hands go still. “Hawke,” he says, hesitating. “Last night. Did we... did I-”

Hawke forces herself to glance down at it. The gash has deepened, and the edges are torn and swollen. It looks as if something has been ripping at it. She quickly averts her gaze, her heart pounding in her ears and throat.

“You didn’t do this,” she says.

She can feel his eyes on her, but she doesn’t want to let him see how rattled she is. She takes the elfroot salve from his hands, and begins to apply it haphazardly. The cool relief against her flesh almost makes her gasp out.

“Then what did?” he asks.

She picks up a length of cotton from the pile, pressing it gingerly to her side to staunch the worst of the bleeding. Not that it matters much, she muses. The Nightmare will only rip it open again as soon as she falls asleep.

“Hawke?”

She starts. Fenris is staring at her with a concerned expression. Hawke bites her lip, and turns back to rummaging through their supplies.

She might as well tell him, she thinks. It’s only going to get worse.

“There is a demon hunting me in the Fade,” she says, pulling out a fresh roll of linen. “It’s been chasing me ever since I left Weisshaupt.” She grits her teeth and starts to wind the cloth tight around her ribs, grimacing as the pressure sends a sharp pain shooting through her side. “Last night I wasn’t quick enough.”

Fenris plucks the bandage from her hands and starts wrapping it himself. “How could a demon do this from the Fade?”

“The Venatori were trying to use me to summon it,” she says. She swallows, remembering the dagger in the mage’s hand, cold as ice against her skin in spite of the warm summer’s day. “I think their mage might have done something to me. At least, it’s never been able to hurt me physically before.” At her side, she feels Fenris go still. She smiles crookedly, trying to maintain a veneer of calm. “Usually it prefers to torment me with ghastly visions, or long, tedious monologues about what a failure I am.”

She takes in a deep breath, willing her heart to stop racing. The images from her dream are already starting to grow dim, dissolving like mist in the bright morning light. But she knows that this is only a temporary reprieve.

It will never let her go.

Hawke looks back out into the woods, to where the shadows lie dark under the trees. She remembers the grey men at their bloodied table, and her mouth tightens.

Perhaps, she thinks, it is finally time for her to stop running.

And suddenly she knows what she will do.

All at once she feels more clear-headed than she has in weeks, and her fear fades away into a grim determination. She will face this on her own terms, she resolves, alone and unafraid.

Then she remembers that she is not alone anymore. And her heart sinks within her like a stone.

It’s no use trying to give him the slip. He’s stronger, faster, better rested. He’d easily track her down again.

She shoots a quick glance in his direction. Fenris is staring down at the discarded poultice, seemingly lost in thought. When she looks closer she can see his face is set into deep, rigid lines.

She frowns. “Fenris? Are you alright?”

“This is my fault,” he says in a numb voice.

Hawke snorts. “Don’t be absurd,” she says, a little more harshly than she intends. She reaches out to grab her pack, her mind still working furiously to piece together a plan. “I should have been more careful. They’d never have caught me if I’d hadn’t gone running through the woods like a bloody lunatic.”

She’ll have to try to drive him away with words, she thinks, the way she’d done in Estwatch. Just the thought of it makes her want to be sick. She shoves her gear back inside the worn canvas bag, inwardly cursing herself for being such a useless, sentimental fool. If she’d had any sense at all she’d have left him last night-

“You do not understand,” Fenris says, his face pale. “I waited.”

'“What?” Hawke says, the pack slipping out of her hand.

The bloodied bandage is stretched tight between his hands. “I had been following your trail for days,” he says. “By the time I tracked you to their camp, they had you strung up around the tree.”

Hawke shrinks away, instinctively retreating from whatever it is he is about to say. But he keeps talking.

“I told myself it was too much of a risk to act while you were still unconscious, in case they should use you as a hostage, or worse, kill you outright.” He pauses, then carries on grimly. “But that wasn’t why I waited.”

“Then why?” she says, staring at him.

He looks away. “I wanted to see what you would do,” he says quietly, “when you woke up.”

For a moment she is confused. Then all at once understanding dawns on her with sickening clarity. “Oh,” she says faintly, sitting back up. She swallows. “You… you thought I would use blood magic.”

Fenris looks up at her, his eyes anguished. ”I swear to you, I stepped in as soon as I saw him draw the knife-”

Hawke is barely listening. “Maker,” she says, sagging forward against her knees, ignoring the flare of pain in her side. She brings a hand to her face, letting out a shaky laugh that scrapes at her insides on its way out. “All that nonsense you said last night, about me being worthy of your trust-”

“I _do_ trust you,” Fenris insists, catching hold of her hand. “But I thought-” He breaks off, his voice faltering. “I had to be sure.”

Hawke looks down at his hand over hers. “And if I had used it?” she asks, carefully avoiding his gaze.

Fenris is silent. “I don’t know,” he says at last.

“I see,” she says, a little stunned. Slowly, she removes her hand from his grip. He lets her go without a word.

She pulls herself up, and walks over to the edge of their camp. Crossing her arms over her chest, she stares out into the woods. Far off in the distance, she can just make out a sliver of white stone gleaming from between the trees.

“I was wrong,” she hears him say from behind her, almost too faintly to make out.

 _You should have trusted me_ , she nearly snaps at him, letting the words dance on the tip of her tongue before biting them back.

But why should he, she thinks wearily. What reason had she given him to trust her?

This is the way it has always been between them, suspicion and guilt and secrets built up over the years in thin layers of sediment that have hardened into stone. She was a fool to think anything had changed.

If anything, she ought to be pleased, she tells herself. He won’t follow her now, not if she tells him to go. All she has to do is find something appropriately cutting to say, words sharp enough to sever whatever is left of the love that binds them together. Then he will finally be free to make a life for himself, unfettered by any lingering attachment to her.

But she thinks about how for years she’s worn her regrets like chains strung around her neck, the inescapable weight of them bearing down on her, each day heavier than the last.

Her side aches. She presses one hand against the bandage.

When she turns back he is still staring down at the ground.

“Fenris,” she says, walking towards him. “Please, look at me.”

He looks up, his eyes apprehensive.

“I forgive you,” she says, reaching out to touch his cheek. The words are sweet as honey in her mouth, so she says them again. “I forgive you.” Each time she says it, she feels lighter. _You will not carry this burden for me,_ she thinks. _Not for me, love_.

He rises up and wraps his arms around her, burying his face in her neck.

“What will happen to you,” he asks, his voice strained.

“Oh, I’ll be alright,” she says, gently stroking his hair. “I’m a survivor, remember?”

Fenris makes a noise that is somewhere between a laugh and a groan.“You are lying,” he says, closing his eyes. “You always think I can’t tell, but I can.”

“Rubbish,” Hawke protests, pressing her cheek close against his. “If that’s true, then why do I always beat you at Diamondback?”

“I let you win, sometimes,” he says softly into her neck. “You get so cross when you lose.”

Hawke blinks. “Well,” she says, “you’re just full of unexpected revelations today, aren’t you?”

He pulls away. “There is a town a week’s journey from here,” he says, his eyes locked on hers in a mute appeal. “They will have a healer, maybe even an alchemist.”

A week, Hawke thinks wistfully. When he says it like that, it almost sounds plausible. Surely she could keep herself awake for a week.

But if she is wrong, then one morning he will wake up to find a corpse at his side. Or something worse.

She shivers, and looks back over her shoulder toward the woods.

“There’s something I need to take care of first,” she says.

“Hawke, please,” he says, his eyes dropping back to her wound, “We do not have time to waste-”

“It won’t take long.” She looks down her feet. “Perhaps,” she says carefully, “you should go on ahead to this town, to make arrangements. I could meet you there, afterwards-”

“You are lying again,” Fenris says, his face clouding. “Why? Do you truly want me to leave you?” He looks searchingly into her eyes. “Say that you wish it, and I will go. Only tell me the truth.”

Looking at him, Hawke feels something give inside her.

She closes her eyes. “No,” she whispers into the narrow space between them. “I don’t want you to go.” She leans in and kisses him fiercely, until they are both breathless. Then she raises her head to look him squarely in the eye. “But when the time comes, you must do it anyway.”

…

She leads him back down into the woods, retracing their steps until she finds the old stone wall. They follow it as it twists and turns through the trees. As they walk, Hawke notices the small details she’s missed in her flight through this forest: the yellow flowers that blossom in patches where the sunlight falls through the trees, the little brown birds that chirp to each other from the branches overhead, the thick moss that grows green and wooly over the gnarled tree trunks. When she reaches out to touch it, her hand sinks in far enough to leave a print.

Her steps are light. She whistles the old songs Mother used to sing to them on the road, tells all of Father’s terrible jokes, but Fenris doesn’t even complain.

 

It takes them half a day before they reach the Rift.

In the mid-day light it throbs and whispers above the tall grass, a dancing green spark against the faded blue of the open sky. As they draw closer, Hawke can see glimpses of the dark landscape that lies just beyond its shimmering form.

Fenris’ face goes hard when he sees it.

“Why have we come to this place?” he asks quietly.

He is looking at her with a guarded expression, and she is afraid he will argue with her. She is too tired to argue anymore.

“What did you say to me the first night we met?” Hawke frowns down at the grass beneath her feet, trying to recall his words from all those years ago. It feels like something from another life. ‘‘‘There comes a time when you must stop running.’” She shrugs, pushing her hair back out of her eyes. “I’ve been running for so long now, Fenris,” she says, with an apologetic smile, “I don’t think I know how to stop. My whole life has been one great escape after another.”

“Tell me why we are here, Hawke.”

“Last night, when it found me-” she trails off, shivering at the memory. “I was so tired. I didn’t even struggle, when it came.”

Her hands are trembling. She wraps them tightly around her staff.

“I don’t want to die like that,” she says, her voice low, “run down and broken, too weary to do anything but wait. If it wants me, it will have to take me on my terms.” She lifts her chin up to meet his gaze. “Can you understand that?”

Fenris is silent for a moment. “Yes,” he says at last.

“Thank you,” she says, dizzy with relief. She smiles at him. “I don’t think I would have had the courage, if it weren’t for you.” She takes his hand, bringing it to her lips. “You’ve given me the strength to face it on my own.”

"You will not face it alone."

Hawke starts, looking up at him. His mouth is set in an obstinate line, and all her relief drains away into numb anticipation of the fight she knows is coming.

She lets out a heavy breath. “I told you that you would have to leave me when the time came,” she begins.

“So you did,” he says. “I made no promise to obey.”

Her voice rises. “You said that if I wished you to go, you would.”

“That was before I knew you intended to _walk into the Fade_ ,” Fenris says, with a barely restrained snarl. “Did you imagine that I would simply stand by and watch?”

“This is my fight, not yours,” she says doggedly. “I meant it when I said I forgave you. You don’t owe me anything.”

“Thank you for informing me that I need not consider myself indebted to you,” Fenris says acidly. “I am sure that would come as a great relief, if indeed I felt any such obligation.” He shakes his head, his voice going somber. “Is it truly so difficult for you to believe that I might choose to help you for no other reason than because I care for you?”

“No,” she says, bowing her head. “I am all too aware of how often you have put yourself in danger attempting to help me.”

“I am well accustomed to danger, Hawke,” he says dryly. “I assure you, I have not taken up a life of leisure in the time we have been parted.”

“Perhaps you should,” she says, her patience slipping. “I hear Antiva is nice this time of year. Or maybe you would prefer Orlais?”

“I would prefer to be miles away from this place, with you at my side instead of at my throat,” he says. “But I have followed your trail from one end of this continent to the other, and I will track you through the Fade too, if I must.”

She flushes. “I’m honored that you’d consider me worth such a sacrifice,” she says, “but I will not allow you to throw your life away.”

“What you will allow is of no consequence to me," Fenris says, raising an eyebrow at her. "I am a free man, as you so often like to remind me.” His eyes narrow. "And I would see this demon. We have fought nightmares before.”

"Not like this.”

"So you say," he says dismissively.

Hawke tries again. “Sometimes there is wisdom in walking away.”

Fenris snorts. “So I have tried to tell you many times,” he says, “always in vain. And now you parrot my own counsel back to me and expect me to heed it?”

“Fenris, please,” she says, desperation creeping into her voice. “Let me have this, if nothing else; that I leave this world with some small number of the people I love left alive in it.”

"I told you once that nothing could be worse than the thought of living without you,” he says, his eyes softening. “Would you consign me to that?”

“You would still be _living,_ ” she retorts. She stops herself, drawing in a shaking breath. “This is the third time I have willingly walked into the Fade. I grew up outside the Circle, but I know the significance of that. Even if we manage to survive, we may not be able to return. Please,” she repeats. “I beg you, do not do this.”

He puts his hands over her shoulders. “This is my choice,” he says gently. He shakes his head. “I will not lose you again.”

“Void take Varric and his damned meddling,” she hisses, shrugging out of his grip. She can feel the tears burning hot behind her eyelids. “I wish to the gods you had never found me. You were free. You finally had the life you deserved-“

He laughs, rubbing his face with one hand. “Maker only knows what it is I deserve, Hawke,” he says wearily, looking down at her with the ghost of a smile. “But I know what I want.”

She stares up at him, speechless. And he kisses her.

And where he kisses her she can feel herself growing young and strong again, all her energy restored. Years fall away between the two of them, and for the first time she doesn’t need to imagine how bright the future might be, because it had already come. She laughs her old laugh, looking up at him, her eyes dancing with delight and relief. He had come back. He had come back, at last.

“Do you remember what you said the night we left Kirkwall?” Fenris says, pressing his forehead close against hers.

Memories of Kirkwall run together in her head like melting wax, and suddenly she can see Isabela, Varric, Merrill, Aveline, Carver, Sebastian, and Anders crowded around one of the old wooden tables of the Hanged Man, their faces luminous and half-faded, like figures from a dream. Did it ever really happen, she wonders. Or was it all just a story she heard once, a long time ago.

“No,” she says, leaning into his touch. “Remind me.”

“You told me that you would lead me to stranger places,” he says, cupping her jaw in his hand.

Hawke breathes out a soft laugh. She reaches up to take his hand, pressing a kiss into the center of his palm. “So it seems I will,” she says, smiling at him through her tears.

Hand in hand, they step through the Rift.


	6. September

**Epilogue**

_~~She will~~ not fade away._

…

Varric is a liar. And endings are the biggest lie of all.

On the page you can prepare, shape the story into a resolution by pulling the threads of the narrative together until they form an orderly pattern.

In real life, it’s not so easy. The story doesn’t stop where you want it to. You might not recognize that final scene, that last page, until long after it’s already passed you by. All around you, threads are being tied off, some snipped seemingly at random. There is no design that you can see. Only the meaning you make for yourself.

But the story keeps on going, long past the point you can make sense of it. The patterns turn meaningless. You start to suspect the narrative you have constructed is all wrong. You wonder if you ever really understood it in the first place.

(And you try not to think about how there was once a time, way back somewhere near the beginning, when you had been so sure it was going to be a love story.)

The truth is that sometimes there is no tidy resolution, no grand epiphany, no helpful lesson to be gleaned from the ending of a story.

Sometimes when someone disappears, they’re just gone.

Blondie is the first, gone before the ash drifting down from the sky even has time to cool, his story coming to an end as his blood ebbs out on the Chantry steps. Some days Varric wishes Hawke had spared him. Other times he considers it a mercy that the mage hadn’t lived to see the chaos his actions had unleashed upon the world. And sometimes he wonders if he had ever really known Anders at all, or if it had only ever been Justice there, looking out at him from behind the other man’s eyes.

Daisy’s story ends in smoke and broken glass. And this Varric takes to heart, because he should have taken pains to ensure she was watched, should have kept the shining thread of her storyline safe from the riots that rocked Lowtown in the wake of the rebellion. Instead it is Aveline who fights her way through the jeering mob and the broken gates of the Alienage, past the shattered windows and the burning branches of the Vhenadahl to Daisy’s doorstep. In her letter she tells him how she found the door forced in, the house in disarray, bloody footsteps leading to the mirror, a large crack running down through the center of the glass.

Later, before she leaves Skyhold, Morrigan hands him a length of string. _I found it in the place beyond_ , she says. _The whispers told me it belonged to you._

He ties it in a knot around his wrist. That night he assigns someone from his network to keep tabs on Sera. Elven girls get lost too easily in this world, he thinks.

For a while Rivaini’s story loops back around his own. Every so often he’ll walk into the Herald’s Rest and find her draped over a chair with her boots up on the table, a bottle in one hand and deck of cards in the other. He’ll settle in beside her, and she’ll pull her hat down low over her eyes and grin at him, and then they’ll spend the rest of the night playing Diamondback and trying to out-bluff each other until one of them either passes out or calls bullshit.

She never stays long. In the frenzied months leading up to final push against Corypheus’s army there is always some new piece of intel to steal, some lost asset to reclaim, a high value target to take out.

Her story ends in the Emerald Graves.

He makes sure they give her a pirate’s funeral.

Aveline can’t leave Kirkwall, so it’s Cassandra of all people who ends up accompanying him to the service. He doesn’t make a big deal about it, but inwardly he is grateful. He can’t stand the thought of mourning her in silence when he knows that her passing should be a great rowdy thing, a spectacle of boasts, booze, and plunder.

As it turns out, he shouldn’t have worried. When it comes time to send her the room is suddenly full of faces he recognizes but can’t put names to. He and Cassandra look around in wonder at the crowd that’s assembled. For every story he has, the rangy archer has two more. The dwarven girl has shaved her head, the elven woman’s eyes are red and puffy. There’s even a musician, a really ridiculous looking guy that Varric doesn’t take seriously until the moment his fingers touch the strings. Then they are all sobbing, the whole damn lot of them, even the mean looking Tal-Vashoth bastard in the corner.

They tell him whose lives she saved, and whose bed she slept in, who she kissed and who she cuffed, who she loathed and who she had loved. They don’t have to tell him who had loved her back. It shines out from their faces and their eyes, the shape their mouths take when they speak her name.

Varric wakes up the next morning with a terrible hangover, but a warmth in his chest. She found a new crew, he thinks. They will remember her name.

What becomes of Hawke is unknown.

(For years and years there is nothing, no word, no trace, until he had almost given up hope-)

But he’s getting ahead of himself.

The thing is, this isn’t just her story anymore. It’s no use pretending he hasn’t got skin in this game. The time when he could sit back on the sidelines and act like none of this was personal has long since passed. No, this is _his_ story now too, not just to spin and shape, but to live, and to live with, if he can. And he finally begins to understand what Hawke and Cassandra have been trying to tell him all along; that it is frightening to lose control of your own name, to know that your actions will be remembered and judged long after you are gone. Varric has always assumed that when things settled down he’d slip back to the relative safety and comfort of obscurity. But at this point it’s looking pretty certain that the story of his life is going to wind up in the pages of history one way or another. It’s up to him to make sure that it’s one worth telling.

So how does the story end?

Maybe like this:

…

They throw a party after they close the Breach.

Josephine’s really out done herself this time. The main hall is glowing in the soft light of a hundred flickering candles, and somehow she has found flowers, not the sparse, drab weeds that dot the mountainside, but downy, full-petaled roses mixed in with delicate sprays of Andraste’s Grace and long stemmed sprigs of embrium, the blossoms bright against the dark green leaves. At the end of the hall is an enormous table laden with roast meats, loaves of fresh dark bread, a variety of soft and hard cheeses, and pyramids of nectarines, pomegranates, apples, pears, oranges and sweet peaches. To the side there are tiered trays of savory canapes, each more intricate than the last, as well as golden custards, flaky tartlets, baked meringues, and tiny iced cakes studded with raisins, candied citrus, anise, and other ingredients too esoteric for Varric to guess at. The hall is fragrant with the scent of spiced wine, steaming up from a gleaming silver serving bowl. A trio of musicians play a lively tune by the fire, though it’s hard to hear them over the din of so many people dancing, talking, and laughing all at once.

Varric sits a little ways apart, watching the festivities.

Vivienne holds court before a ring of masked nobles, gesturing gracefully up at one of the mosaics they brought back from the Deep Roads. On the other side of the room, Sera and Blackwall are competing for a busty serving girl’s attention, elbowing each other and grinning whenever she blushes. Dorian sits by the fire with Bull’s head in his lap, daintily feeding him from a plate of pink petit-fours. In front of the musicians, Josephine is guiding Cassandra through the steps of some extremely formal looking waltz, her hair falling half-undone over one shoulder, and a silly grin lighting up her face.

Looking at them Varric is overcome by an emotion he can’t fully identify; half pride at what they’ve accomplished, half nostalgia for a time and place that is already vanishing. Even now he can feel the moment taking on the tarnished-gold patina of a well loved memory. This may be the last night they are all together in this room. Soon Dorian will leave for Tevinter, Cassandra for Orlais, Blackwall for the Vinmark mountains, and Vivienne for Cumberland.

He shifts in his chair. For weeks now, people have been asking him what his own plans are. When he will return home.

He hedges and evades, but the truth is he doesn’t know if he ever will.

How can he?

Home is a place that no longer exists.

What was he supposed to do? Take up his old room at the Hanged Man? And every morning walk down the stairs to see Nora cleaning up the cups from the night before, and feel his hand half rise to settle the tab before he remembers that these are the remains of someone else’s revels. Or worse, to forget, and stand there for a moment straining to recall the night before. As if they have all been and gone without him, waiting until he has gone to sleep and only then coming out to drink and cuss and fight and kiss, the way they used to do.

He thinks that with enough ale he could make that moment last longer and longer, claim a home for himself in the gap between sleep and memory, the way his mother had done.

And two years ago he might have taken that way out, left his city in ruins, little more than a ruin himself.

But tonight, as he looks around the crowded room, he finds himself thinking about Skyhold, not as it is, but as it was; dilapidated, old, empty. He thinks about how if you worked hard enough, if you were willing to put your trust in people, together you could build something strong enough to last. And if you put love into the work, you could create something capable of holding more than just the space within the walls, something greater than just an arrangement of notes, or the words on a page. You could make a home, a song, a story. It didn’t matter which. In the end they were all the same- a vessel to hold the things you loved.

He looks up at the walls, time-worn mosaics and statues gleaming in the candlelight, and he thinks about how much Daisy would have loved this place, every inch of it practically dripping with ancient elven history. How much it would have meant to Blondie to see a mage at the head of an organization like this, working to create a world in which enchanters garnered respect from commoners and kings alike. How Fenris would have felt, liberating refugees from Venatori labor camps. How Rivaini had felt, fighting beside her comrades-in-arms. How Hawke’s lips had felt, pressed up against his.

They were gone, all of them, but they shone so brightly in his memory.

And this was part of the secret. You didn’t have to lie fallow and broken out of loyalty to those you’d lost. The dead did not require that from you. As long as you carried the memory of that light inside you, there was hope. You could build it up again. You could let love in. And the best part was, it didn’t replace the love you’d lost. Because you were building it for them, too.

It’s about time, Varric decides, for him to go back to Kirkwall.

Cassandra comes over to drop heavily into the chair beside him, her cheeks flushed from dancing.

“Seeker,” he says, out of habit, and then stops. “Shit,” he says, shaking his head, “I’m gonna have to come up with a new nickname for you, aren’t I?”

She turns to fix him with an unblinking stare. “You will address me as _Most Holy Divine Victoria_ ,” she says with mounting outrage.

“Kind of a mouthful, don’t you think?”

Her nostrils flare, and Varric ducks instinctively. “Alright, alright,” he says, chuckling. “Let’s call it a work in progress. Still, you must be happy. A new name is kind of like a fresh start. No one will be writing about the Hero of Orlais anymore.”

Cassandra pulls a wry face. “Perhaps if I endeavor to be very dull, nobody shall write about me at all.”

“Well…” Varric starts.

“What?”

“I mean, you have killed a lot of dragons,” he says, trying to keep back his smirk. If her expression is any indication, he’s not doing a great job. “And religious romances are all the rage right now. You should see some of the cover illustrations on the new novels.”

“ _New_ novels?”

“Oh yeah,” he says. “They’ve got you decked out in this crazy gold armor. It’s a little far-fetched if you ask me, but I guess there’s only so high you can hike up those robes without getting accused of sacrilege-”

“Armor?” Cassandra’s eyes light up. “Hmm,” she muses. “The traditional vestments are quite cumbersome. And it would not be entirely without precedent… Varric,” she says, turning to him, “could you send me some of these novels?” Her eyes narrow. “For research purposes only, you understand.”

“Whatever you say,” he says, winking at her.

Cassandra gives him a warning look, and then with a sigh turns her gaze back to the crowded dancefloor. “I will miss this place,” she says, her eyes resting on Josephine’s smiling face.

“Yeah,” Varric says. “Me too.”

“Aha,” she says, her eyebrows lifting. “So you are planning to go back.” Her face brightens.

“What,” he says, squinting suspiciously at her. “Don’t tell me that after dragging me all this way you’re suddenly eager to be rid of me?”

“I have just won my very first wager,” Cassandra informs him. “Dorian bet me five royals that you would stay.”

“Well done,” Varric says, impressed despite himself. “Just don’t expect to see them anytime soon. That welcher still owes me fifty crowns.”

“When will you return?”

“Soon, I think,” he says, his grin fading. “There’s a lot of rebuilding to do.” He’s pretty sure that fixing Kirkwall’s problems is going to make patching a hole in the sky look like a cakewalk. “Can’t let Aveline have all the fun, can I?”

“Your friend Sebastian has written to me requesting funds to re-establish the Chantry,” Cassandra says, leaning forward, her face intent. “You have my word, I will send them as soon as I am ordained.”

“Yeah,” Varric says slowly, scratching the back of his head. “About that.” Aveline’s been after him to broach this subject for ages. He figures now is as good a time as any. She’s less likely to murder him with this many people in the room. “There’s not going to be any new Chantry.”

Cassandra’s brows contract, and her lips compress sharply.

“Look,” Varric says hastily, before she can start stabbing anything. “Kirkwall needs to get the harbor up and running again if it’s gonna have any chance at long term financial solvency. After that comes public housing, health clinics, trade schools, libraries-” At her incredulous expression, he shrugs. “Aveline figures if we give kids something constructive to do, maybe they won’t turn to crime and blood magic so easily. The point is, rebuilding some old magister’s house is not exactly a high priority right now.” _Or ever_ , he adds silently.

“The Kirkwall Chantry was far more than an old magister’s house,” Cassandra argues. “And I should think hours spent contemplating faith in wholesome prayer a worthy enough pastime for any developing young person.”

Varric’s willing to bet that that in the history of the city no Kirkwall youth had ever voluntarily spent more than ten minutes within the Chantry’s walls, let alone hours, but he keeps it to himself.

“And what of the templars?” she continues. “How will they serve without the Grand Cleric’s wisdom to guide them?”

“City guard’s been doing their job for years now,” Varric says, watching as Cullen cautiously attempts to remove a single, rosy apple from the middle of the towering pyramid.

“They are not equipped to handle mages,” Cassandra insists. Her words are punctuated by a chorus of dull thumps as a mini avalanche of fruit hits the floor and rolls across the hall.

Varric snorts. “Who do you think put down all of the abominations and maleficarum that cropped up over the years?” he says, turning back to her. “Aveline, with a little help from Hawke, Daisy, and Blondie.”

Her face darkens. “This is who you choose to use an example? The heretic apostate who destroyed the Kirkwall Chantry?”

“Last time I checked, you don’t have to be a mage to be an asshole. And they’ve done a hell of a lot of good too. You’ve seen it for yourself,” he says, nodding toward the Inquisitor.

“They are not all like her,” Cassandra says.

“You’re right,” he says. “Most of them are just ordinary people trying to live their lives. Give them a way to do that, and maybe you won’t have to lock a quarter of the population away in prisons.”

“You know it is not that simple.”

“I know it’s easier to keep a following broken system than it is to change,” he says. He’s just as guilty of that as anyone. “Don’t you think it’s time we at least tried to do better?”

Cassandra falls silent.

“I trust Aveline,” he continues. “She’s knows good people when she sees them. It’ll be even easier once she’s allowed to recruit them openly.” He’s pretty sure she’s got a couple mages working for her already. She mentioned something about a ‘special investigation’ squad in her last letter.

“This is an extremely unorthodox solution,” Cassandra says stiffly.

Varric shrugs. “Kirkwall’s always been an unorthodox place.”

Cassandra sighs, rubbing her head in her hands. “Why do I have the feeling that any funds I send will simply wind up reappropriated anyway,” she complains.

He laughs, and pats her on the back. “I’ll make sure we name the first orphanage after you.”

“See that you do,” she says, turning to stare at him. “And mind yourself, Varric. Do not think I will hesitate to come back and drag you out in chains again should the need arise.”

He grins. “I’ll try to keep that in mind, Holiness.”

…

As his ship navigates through the rocky archipelagos that dot the Waking Sea, Varric finds he is holding his breath.

At last the city comes into view, the Gallows rising up in a solid wall of stone, and behind it the Twins standing guard against the cliff face.

It’s only as they get closer that the damage becomes apparent. Kirkwall has never been beautiful, exactly, but it had been striking, with its decadent mansions glittering atop the looming black cliffs, zigzagging bridges and stairways cut into the stone, heavy chains strung like banners from the spikes and sculptures that adorned the rock face, and beneath that the cloud of smog and foundry smoke hovering ever-present over the sprawl of the shanty towns carved into base of the cliffs. Even during the worst years it had always been teeming with life. Now it seems small and empty, the watch fires unlit, the Gallows a desolate shell. From the ship Varric picks out broken windows, blackened timbers, caved in roofs, and crumbling walls.

It hurts more than he expects, seeing the city like this. It was like seeing a woman you loved with her face beaten, her once proud eyes downcast, rich clothing replaced by tattered rags.

Varric leans forward on his elbows, mentally cataloguing each hurt, making calculations and corrections in his head, already planning the grand recovery. _Don’t worry, sweetheart_ , he thinks, looking out over the tarnished statues more pitiful than frightening, the rusted chains sagging low over the harbor. _We’ll get you back on your feet. Just you wait._

It’s going to take work. He’ll have to call in every favor he’s owed from the Merchant’s Guild, the Coterie, shit, maybe even the Carta. And beyond that, he’ll need to reach out to all his old contacts among the smugglers, sailors, mercenaries, miners, nobles, and whores. It’s going to take everything they’ve got to put this city back together.

But the truth is that Kirkwall has always had champions, if you knew where to look.

Varric’s heart lifts as he spots a familiar figure waiting at the Docks.

Aveline looks much the same as she did when he last saw her. There are a few minor differences- she’s cropped her hair short, for one thing. He thinks her broad shoulders are a little more stooped than he remembers, too. If he squints, he can almost see the weight of the entire city pressing down on them.

As he steps down off the gangway, she pulls him into a tight embrace.

“Took you long enough,” she says gruffly. “I was beginning to think I’d have to come and fetch you.”

“Sorry,” he says, struggling for breath. Her grip is just as firm as ever, he notes. “Next time I’ll try to save the world a little quicker.”

She breaks away, her face going serious. “It’s good to have you back.”

“Yeah, well, I got tired of tramping around the countryside,” he says, shifting his hands into his pockets. “Not to mention, I was starting to get homesick for Corff’s cooking. Is he still making that same mutton stew? You remember, the one that smells like someone left a herd of dead goats out in the rain? Just the other day the Inquisitor and I were walking past a stable boy mucking out the watering trough, and I took in a deep breath and said to myself, ‘Ahh, I miss Kirkwall’-”

Aveline snorts. “Alright, don’t over sell it,” she says, clapping him on the back.

As they wait for the deckhands to unload his bags and cargo, Varric takes in the state of the Docks. He sees broken timbers, half submerged jetties, and far too many empty berths.

“I thought the reconstruction efforts would be further along by now,” he says, frowning.

“You should have seen it before your Inquisitor’s men finished shipping away all the debris,” Aveline says. “The Docks looked like a lumberyard.” She nods her head up at the cliffs. “So far nearly all of the work is being done in Hightown. They’ve had to tear down most of the old estates.” She hesitates. “You might want to prepare yourself,” she says. “A lot’s changed up there since you left.”

It was only to be expected. The damage to Hightown had been extensive. But he still feels a sharp pang in his chest at the thought that her house won’t be there, waiting for him. He averts his gaze from the cliffs. “How’s Lowtown holding up?” he asks.

Aveline doesn’t answer right away.

“That bad, huh,” he says.

He hears her sigh. “In the riots after the conclave explosion, half the districts were on fire,” she says. “It took weeks before we could get it out. The infrastructure is shot to blazes, though I suppose I can hardly expect less given that most of the streets are just repurposed mining corridors. We’ve had cave-ins every month. There’s people starving to death in what’s left of Darktown, and we can’t get to them fast enough.” When he looks over she is staring out at the slums, her brow furrowed. “Sometimes it feels like the last five years have just been one disaster after the next.”

“We’ll get there,” he says, as much to himself as to her. “One step at a time.”

“And with each step forward, we take two steps back,” she mutters.

“What do you mean?”

Aveline rubs her forehead. “For the last three months now we’ve had extra supply shipments delivered. Not a surplus, mind you, but enough that we could begin distributing aid to some of the areas that were hit hardest during the riots.” Her jaw tightens. “Then one day Brennan picks up some grifter selling counterfeit ration tokens in the Lowtown bazaar. And the bastard has the gall to claim that we had a deal. That the Coterie has been bringing these shipments into the city. And for that, I’m apparently supposed to look the other way while they ‘skim the fat off the top’-”

The flaming idiot, Varric thinks. It had taken weeks to set those shipments up. He’d warned them all to keep their damned mouths shut, that she’d never go for it if she knew where it was coming from.

“-and that’s just the latest example. You should see some of the characters that have turned up in the Keep over the last few years.” Aveline shakes her head, her voice going sharp with anger. “What drives me mad is that they always insist that they’re helping.”

“Maybe some of them actually believe it,” Varric says.

“Maybe,” she says wearily. “I’m not so proud that I’ll turn my nose up at charity. The city’s in no position to refuse aid from anyone.” She runs a hand through her cropped hair. “Maker only knows how much gold we’ll owe to Starkhaven by the time this is through. But if I start accepting that kind of help, eventually they’ll own me, same as they did Jeven.”

Privately Varric thinks that anyone trying to buy off Aveline could save themselves a lot of time and trouble by simply shoving their coin directly up their own ass. Her steadfast commitment to enforcing the strictest letter of the law had made her the scourge of the city’s prodigious underclass of thieves, scammers, and swindlers.

That kind of relentless zeal for honesty and integrity ought to be considered a virtue. And yet he sometimes wonders if what it really amounted to was a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the city and the people in it. He couldn’t fault her for it, exactly. After all, it was her job to keep things running on the straight and narrow. But Kirkwall was built crooked. It was an essential component of the city’s identity, part of what had helped it resist the influence of the various invaders and foreign powers that had taken an interest in it over the years. Centuries of grift, profiteering, extortion, and bloodshed stood testament to this one fact: deep down in its twisted, shriveled little heart, the city didn’t want to be clean.

How Aveline had managed to avoid corruption after living here for over a decade was anyone’s guess. But even if she eventually succeeded in routing the various crime syndicates that had sprung up like toadstools in the depths of the undercity, someone else would always be nosing around, ready and waiting to fill the gap.

Personally, Varric preferred to take a more light-handed approach to dealing with the criminal element. In his experience, if you kept them busy working for you, they didn’t have as much time to go looking for ways to work against you.

“Everybody wants something,” he says guardedly. “At least with the Coterie, you know what their angle is.”

“As opposed to Starkhaven, you mean?” She snorts. “I know what Sebastian wants. A new chantry twice the size of the old, and his bloody belt buckle staring down at us from every corner and doorway of Hightown.” She squints at him. “It’s your Inquisitor I can’t make out. What’s her stake in this?”

He shrugs. “She’s got this funny idea that the region would be a hell of a lot more stable without the city acting as a breeding ground for blood mages and lyrium-addled zealots.“

“Well, she’s not wrong,” Aveline admits. “Though I like to think we’ve kept that situation fairly contained lately. The templars are long gone, and most of the mages ran off to join up with your lot.”

Varric can’t blame them. When you came right down to it, it wasn’t really much of a choice: stay in a city that alternately feared you and hated your guts, or go join up with an organization led by one of your own. He sighs, thinking of the work that lay ahead. They had a long way to go before Kirkwall would view magic users with anything but resentment and suspicion.

Aveline clears her throat. “Speaking of runaway mages,” she begins, looking over at him.

He shakes his head, and she trails off, letting the question go unspoken. “No word yet,” he says. “I’ve got a few people on it.”

“Right,” Aveline says, her face clouding. She turns away to gaze at the slums.

For a moment both of them are silent.

“It’s different here without her,” she says quietly. “But you do get used to it, after awhile.”

Varric thinks that the only thing that could possibly be worse than a life without Hawke is the thought of getting _used_ to a life without Hawke. He looks out over the city. As the sun slips down behind the cliff, he can see lights beginning to appear in the windows.

“Come on, Varric,” Aveline says, laying her hand on his shoulder. “Let’s go home.”

…

It's not time that ages you, Varric thinks, but memory.

His mother had known it, had drank herself dumb and blind in order to escape that terrible duty. It was passed down to Bartrand, though he is relieved of it now, poor sod. Varric still visits him in the sanitarium from time to time. Lost in his madness, he remembers only the things a child might.

For many years Varric has successfully avoided this particular inheritance, allowing it to gather dust alongside the gold-plated noble cast pin and the old family portraits. But now at last it has settled upon him, handed down from mother to son to brother, his birthright: to remember the things which were lost.

The first week is the hardest.

He rents a place in Hightown. He figures it’ll be easier there now that most of the familiar structures have been cleared away. Less memories to trip him up, send him spiraling back into the past.

But she is everywhere.

Sometimes when he’s walking home he closes his eyes, and Old Hightown spreads out around him as if it has been waiting for him to find it again. He can see it clear as day, the merchants hawking their wares in the Hightown Market, the painted men and women smiling and beckoning from the corners of the Red Lantern District, the dark, broken windows of Danarius’ mansion a striking contrast to the opulent manors of the Hightown Estates. He knows the path so well his feet will take him right to her doorstep, and it’s all he can do to keep himself from knocking, to force himself to open his eyes so he that can see there is no estate, no Amell crest, just his hand reaching out into the empty space where her door used to be.

It’s even worse in Lowtown. There her ghost runs rampant, dodging him behind corners, always two steps ahead in the narrow streets, the trill of her laugh curling through the air like a wisp of smoke. Or else it’s Daisy, lost again (he still carries the string, hoping one day it will lead her to him) or Rivaini, sneaking up behind him. He can feel her kiss in the sea-salt spray of the breeze on his cheek, but each time he turns to catch her she is gone.

Unseen by all but him, they haunt the city, their names forgotten.

Each day Aveline walks out to meet him on the stairs of the Keep. There is no telltale stiffness in her step, but he can see it in the grey that threads through her temples, the way her eyes will sometimes skim over the line of guardsmen, looking for faces that aren’t there.

What will he do when she is gone, he thinks, when he is the only one that remembers?

But his book remains as popular as ever, and so he consoles himself with this: that in the shelter of those warped and wrinkled pages they will never grow old, never falter, never fail. The fatal blow will never fall upon Rivaini’s neck. Daisy will always be waiting for him, still fresh, pressed between the pages. Fenris will still be watching with those mournful eyes, half wild and half tame, looking at Hawke the way a hungry child looks at sweets through a window pane. And best of all there is Hawke herself, laughing and lanky and untouched by the years, as dear to him as the days of his own lost youth.

Little by little, the city changes. The Kirkwall of his stories is disappearing, replaced by new buildings, new streets, new faces. Sometimes Varric wonders if they are doing the right thing by rebuilding. Practically every structure in Kirkwall is a memento mori of some ancient atrocity, old symbols and murals scraped into the walls by bloody fingernails as a reminder of past sacrifices. There are things that have happened in this city that ought to be remembered, he thinks, things they haven’t earned the privilege of forgetting. But that’s exactly what they’re doing; systematically eradicating the city’s memory, tearing it down piece by piece. Until you’d never know that this was the corner where Blondie had hung up his lantern; that on this block stood the compound that had once housed the Arishok; that beneath this street lay the foundry where her mother had died.

Would she even recognize it now, he wonders.

Time goes by.

Five years after he comes back to Kirkwall, Bianca’s husband dies in a tunnel collapse.

Things get a lot simpler after that.

Over time their affair has cooled to something comfortable and predictable, which he finds suits him just fine.

There are still parts of her life he can’t touch; the selves that belong wholly to her children, to her House, and most of all to her work. She’ll never be all his, just like he’ll never be entirely hers. They’d lost that chance years ago, back when they were too young to appreciate what it meant. Not that Varric minds so much anymore. What they have is enough.

She splits her time between Kirkwall and Orlais. He has to sign one hell of a contract, waiving the right to claim revenue from any existing or future work she may complete during their relationship, and granting House Davri a hefty discount on all import and export taxes from shipments coming through Kirkwall. It’s practically highway robbery, but it keeps the assassins off his back, so he figures it’s worth it.

Aveline and Donnic opt for a more conventional family model. She always swore that the only way they’d have kids was if Donnic carried them to term and pushed them out his own ass, but as it turns out, this wasn’t necessary. In the years that follow the chaos of the mage-templar war, Kirkwall is flush with orphans. They wind up adopting a whole brood of children. And though none of them have her red hair, Varric thinks there is something of her in the iron of their stance, the straight-backed resolution with which they greet him, and the slightly disapproving way they look at him when he tells them a story about copper marigolds.

Slowly but surely they build the city into something stronger and more prosperous than he could have ever imagined back in the days when he’d lounged around the slums playing the wastrel younger brother. Looking out over the parks and promenades and mentally comparing it to the dirty, scrappy city of his youth, Varric knows it has changed for the better.

And still, her absence runs through everything like a crack, distorting his sense of time and space. Sometimes he can see his life separated cleanly into two halves, before and after, each year carrying him further and further away from her. Other days he feels her presence so keenly it’s as though she’s hovering just out of view, as if he turned his head fast enough he would catch sight of her grinning at him behind his back, one finger pressed to her lips.

Aveline is wrong. He never does manage to get used to it.

Part of him is still waiting for her to swagger back into his life with the same casual aplomb with which she’d first entered it all those years ago.

He holds on to his hopes long past the point a more reasonable man would have let them go.

Until at last, one night he gets a visit from an old friend.

…

It’s late.

Varric’s expecting to be alone. Bianca’s pulling an all-nighter down in the workshop, and he’s got a pretty tight security detail these days, so he’s surprised when he open the door to his study and sees the tall, hooded figure standing in the shadows by the window. He’s long since given up hauling a crossbow around on his back, but if there’s one thing that holding a public office has taught him it’s that you always plan for contingencies, so he reaches down for the dagger he keeps in his boot.

Then she turns around, and his hand freezes.

She steps forward into the candlelight, her blue eyes shining out at him from beneath her hood.

“Hello Varric,” Leliana says.

In the old days, they used to say that you could infer what sort of death you had been assigned by who was sent for you. If it was the Crows, you could expect torture. If it was a bard, odds were good there would be scandal. If it was the Carta, then Maker help you, you were better off taking a knife to your own throat. But a visit from the Nightingale, they said, meant the Divine had granted you a chance for a peaceful death.

For Leliana’s hands were steady and swift, her voice soothing, and her aim true. It was said that if you were calm, and did not struggle, she would slip the blade into your heart as gently as a mother putting her own child to sleep.

It has been many, many years since the Nightingale made house calls. There is only one reason she would come to see him personally.

And frankly, Varric thinks that all things considered he might have preferred a run in with the common assassin or thief he’d initially taken her for.

At least this saves him from having to shitcan his security team, he reflects stoically as he straightens up.

“Hey Sister, good to see you,” he lies, closing the door behind him. “Give a guy a little notice next time, will you? I’m getting too old for these cloak-and-dagger games.”

“My apologies,” Leliana says, inclining her head. “Would you mind if I sat down? I have been traveling for many hours.”

“Please, make yourself comfortable,” he says, gesturing toward the chairs by his desk.

He examines her closely as she steps forward. Her hair is pulled back from her face in a simple but stylish chignon, and her cloak is embroidered with a pattern of ravens in flight. She has become more Orlesian with age, he thinks. But then, that was the thing about being born an outsider. You spent so much time trying to fit in that in the end you wound up more native than the natural-born citizens.

As she moves further out of the shadows, his eyes catch on the worn leather satchel she carries at her side. Abruptly, his apprehension crystallizes into cold dread. He quickly looks away.

“Can I get you something to drink?” he asks.

“Thank you,” she says, and he busies himself retrieving the wine glasses, turning around so she won’t see his hands trembling.

Isn’t it better to know, he tells himself. It’s been well over a decade now. Past time to put these old ghosts to rest.

The corkscrew rattles loudly against the glass neck of the bottle.

“So,” he says, to cover the sound, “how’s it feel to be retired?” Another lie. She’ll never really retire, of course. But it suits her purposes to have people believe it, and so he plays along.

“Unnerving,” she says. “I am unused to having so much free time to fill. Divine Victoria has lent me a number of romance novels for pleasure reading, many of yours among them, I believe.”

“Be careful,” he says, pulling out the cork with a muted pop. “Too much of that stuff will rot your brain.”

“Oh, I’m looking forward to it,” he hears her murmur.

“You know, I hear you were quite the storyteller yourself back in the day,” he says, steadying his hand as he pours the wine evenly into two tall-stemmed glasses. “A mutual friend of ours used to speak very highly of your songs.”

“I have not sung in many years,” she says. “I fear I am sadly out of practice.”

“Why did you stop?” he asks, glancing over his shoulder. He’s pushing past the boundaries of polite conversation now, but he knows she’ll allow it. After all, this is his moment of grace, the brief interlude before she delivers the killing blow.

She pauses before answering.  

“I suppose I grew to believe that people didn’t need my stories,” she says slowly, folding her hands in her lap. “At least, not so much as they required my other talents.”

“That’s a shame,” he says, handing her a wineglass.

“Perhaps,” she says, accepting it with a smile of thanks. “But of course, there was work to be done.” She swirls the glass, and daintily leans forward to catch the aroma. ”I expect you must be very busy yourself these days,” she says, looking up at him over the rim. “Do you still find the time to write?”

“Not as often as I’d like,” he admits, corking the bottle and seating himself behind his desk.

She raises the glass in a salute, her eyes gleaming. “What shall we drink to?”

“How about old friends,” he says.

“To old friends, then,” she says, bringing her glass to meet his. The clink echoes loudly through the darkened room.

She takes a sip of her wine, and when she looks up at him again Varric knows his moment of grace is over.

This is an expensive wine, the grapes harvested from the sunny banks of the Seleny river and  crushed beneath the delicate toes of Antivan chantry sisters, but he drains the rest of his glass without tasting it.

“All right,” he says, putting it aside. No point in dragging things out. “I’m guessing you didn’t come all this way for a glass of wine.”

“Regrettably, no.” Leliana carefully places her wineglass on the end table next to the chair. “I am afraid I have some distressing news to deliver,” she says.

He’d known from the minute he saw her what she has come to tell him, but he still feels his chest constrict at her words.

“You found her,” he says numbly.

“We have,” she replies in a voice soft as black feathers brushing against glass.

“Where,” he asks before he can stop himself. He’s been asking the same question for years now, to the distant waves in the sea, the shadows of the sails on the water, the smoke that drifts up from the chimneys at dusk, all the ghosts that linger just beyond his reach. _Where are you. Where are you. Where are you._ He’s repeated it so often that it rises to his lips like a prayer.

Her response comes sharp and swift as a knife to the heart. “Our agents located her remains in a forest on the Nevarran border.”

 _Her remains_. The shock of those two words knocks the air clean out of him, and for a second the room goes dark.

Varric swallows thickly, rocking back in his chair.

He’d known, he tells himself. Surely he’d known. Maybe not in that first year, but in the ones that had followed, stacking up around him like unpaid bills. Shit, even before that, back in Skyhold on that final morning, watching her face catch the light as she turned away. A part of him had always known she would never come back.

He reaches out for the wine bottle. “How did it happen,” he asks, his voice hoarse.

Leliana regards him with unblinking eyes the color of ice. “How much do you want to know?”

All of it, and none of it. “Just start talking,” he says, refilling his glass. “I’ll tell you when to stop.”

She looks at him appraisingly for a moment, and then nods. “Very well,” she says, straightening up in her chair. “Our findings indicate she was captured by a band of Venatori, about a month’s journey from Weisshaupt.”

For a second Varric thinks he’s misheard. “Venatori?” he interjects, squinting across his desk at her. “What would they want with her?”

“She was close enough to the Tevinter border that it is possible they crossed paths purely by chance.”

Varric has never cared much for chance. Given the choice, he vastly prefered to believe in fate. In his experience you were generally fucked either way, but at least with the latter it was implied that there was a certain structure to the shit you couldn’t control, a path you were meant to walk, even if you couldn’t always see where it led.

“What,” he says, frowning, “you’re saying it was just bad luck that they found her?”

“So it would seem,” Leliana says.

He wants to protest that she could never have died in such a small, ordinary way. That it wasn’t possible that the woman who had survived the Deep Roads, the Arishok, the Knight-Captain and a whole squad of possessed statues could have fallen to a handful of mediocre cultists.

But he’s getting them confused again, the Hawke in his story and the Hawke in his heart.

The truth was that even extraordinary people occasionally got tired, or sloppy, or so run down by the vicissitudes of life that they just stopped caring. And after that it didn’t take an army of templars, an arch-demon, or a one way trip to the Fade. There were any number of mundane indignities awaiting at the end of life. Varric has seen that firsthand, but it never fails to surprise him.

Something else occurs to him. “The elf,” he says, leaning forward. “Was he with her?”

“Who?”

“Fenris,” Varric says. “The Tevinter elf I asked you to look for, back in Skyhold.”

“Ah yes. I am sorry we could not locate him,” she says, giving him a curious look. “But we found no evidence to suggest she was accompanied. I believe she was traveling alone when they captured her.”

He lapses back into silence.

“The bodies we found at the site were in an advanced stage of decomposition,” she continues. “They had been lying there for many years, of course, but that in itself would not account for the state we found them in. Most were charred beyond recognition. In some cases, the bone itself had disintegrated.” For a moment she hesitates. “One of our scouts recovered an unusual dagger, crafted of fade-touched obsidian.” She looks up to meet his eyes. “I am told they are often used to perform blood sacrifices,” she says. “Particularly those involving summoning rituals.”

A chill runs through him. “She would never let that happen,” he says sharply.

Leliana averts her eyes. “I was not there, you understand,” she says. “I’ve reviewed the accounts my agents provided of the campsite, and the evidence they gathered, and that is all. But if you like, I will tell you what I think happened.”

It’s just another story, Varric reminds himself. No different from the ones he’s told over the years. Maybe on their own the facts held some measure of objective truth, but as soon as you started contextualizing them you were making choices: what came first, what was important, what to include and what to leave out.  

“Sure,” he says. “Knock yourself out.”

Leliana reaches for her wine glass. “She was a very powerful mage, yes?” she says, examining the dark red liquid in the candlelight. “With a particular affinity for fire, or so I have heard.” She takes a slow sip of her wine, and when she speaks again her voice is cool and detached. “I think they must have drugged her somehow. That is what I would have done. Magebane, maybe, to cut off her magic, or soulrot, which saps away the will. And yet however they managed to subdue her, it was not enough. She could not escape, perhaps, but she was not entirely helpless either. And when she saw what they were planning to do, well…” She shakes her head, offering him a small smile. “I do not believe she would choose to go quietly, under those circumstances.”

Hawke never did anything quietly if she could help it, Varric thinks, his heart sinking within his chest. It wasn’t her style.

He shifts forward in his chair, catching and holding her gaze. “You don’t think there’s any way she could have escaped?” He recognizes the voice he’s using now. It’s the one he normally reserves for creditors, tax collectors, and his editor after he’s missed a deadline. “You said the remains were too far gone to identify, right? Maybe she had herself a nice old fashioned Venatori barbeque and then high-tailed it out of there.”

“It is possible, of course,” Leliana says. “But if she had, I think we would have heard something from her by now.”

“Right,” Varric says. He leans back into his chair.

So that was it, he thinks. After years of sleepless nights spent imagining how it could have happened, it was as simple as that. The wrong place at the wrong time. A band of Venatori. She had burned to death.

His hands fumble with the wine glass. He closes his eyes, waiting for the full weight of Leliana’s story to sink in, for the pain to come.

There is nothing.

After a moment of reflection, he concludes that must be because he doesn’t believe a damned word of it.

“I assume you’ve got something definitive,” he says, opening his eyes. It’s a pointless question. She wouldn’t have come if she wasn’t sure. But he has to ask.  

“I believe so,” she says, resigned but not surprised.

“All right then,” he says. He forces his hand to loosen its death grip around the delicate wineglass. No point in making a mess. “Lets see it.”

She reaches down into the bag at her feet.

By now Varric has prepared himself for any number of horrors to emerge from that bag; a tooth, a finger, fuck, maybe even a decapitated head. So when Leliana pulls out a slim, slightly singed volume, and passes it across his desk, it takes him a minute to realize what he’s looking at.

He blinks.

It’s a copy of the last chapter of _Hard in Hightown_.

“Wait,” he says, looking from the book to her in disbelief, “is this it?”

Leliana nods silently.

“You’re telling me that _this_ is all you’ve got?” Relief courses through him so fast it makes him dizzy, and he laughs aloud. “Shit, Sister, these things are everywhere. I once found one wedged in the privy of an old elven ruin.” He flips to the title page, looking for the date of print. “Hawke didn’t even like this book. Said I made the ending too sad-“

His mouth goes dry, and his voice fades away into a whisper.

There, tucked carefully between the pages, is a dried circlet of red flowers.

“I thought I recognized it,” Leliana says softly. “It is quite rare, did you know?”

Varric doesn’t respond.

“It’s proper name is _cora tristitia_ , but Orlais they call it Andraste’s Blood,” she continues, her voice low. “One of the sisters brought a clipping to Skyhold as an offering for the Herald. A rather foolish gift, I’m afraid. It was ill suited for the harsh climate of Frostback mountains.” He drags his eyes away from the book on his desk to stare blindly up at her. “It only ever blossomed that one summer.”

“You’re thorough,” he hears himself say in a ragged voice that doesn’t sound like his own. “I’ll give you that.” He closes the leather binding with shaking hands, taking care not to damage the paper thin blossoms. “Can’t see how Chuckles ever got one over on you.”

He’s botching the kill, he knows. She’s trying to make this easy for him. It will only hurt more if he lashes out.

“I’m sorry, Varric,” she says, a professional to the end.

Things go fuzzy after that. He thinks she speaks again, but the only thing he hears is a voice saying ‘ _always_ ’, and all he sees are bright blue eyes, a swoop of dark hair, the crooked curve of her grin.

The scrape of the chair against the floor finally pulls him back to himself. He looks up to find Leliana standing in front of his desk.

“I must return,” she says, reaching out to touch his shoulder. “My absence will cause gossip if I am gone too long.”

Varric manages to keep himself from recoiling back from her hand, but it’s a near thing. She’s too close not to have noticed. He can’t quite bring himself to care. “Sure,” he says, avoiding her gaze. “Give my regards to her Holiness.”

“I will,” she says, bowing her head.

He looks back down at the book. “You’re wrong, you know,” he says. He runs his thumb down the worn spine, tracing the embossed lettering. “People will always need stories.”

For a moment she is quiet.

“Perhaps,” she says, in a voice so low he can barely make out the words. “But not mine.”

He hears the click of the door as it closes behind her.

…

That night in his bed he feels cold fingers wind themselves into his chest hair, and he wakes with a start, shaking and gasping. The healers have told him he has a heart condition (can you believe that shit?) but he knows who is really to blame.

“Real funny,“ he says to the empty air.

There is nothing but silence

He thinks about the promise he made. About how there is power in stories, the ones you tell and the ones you don’t. About the two Kirkwalls, the one that other people could see, and the one that only existed in his memory. And then he closes his eyes and thinks about the sound of her breathing beside him in the dark, until he can almost make himself believe he feels the slow rise and fall of her back pressed against his.

He doesn’t go back to sleep.

…

Varric’s no mage, but there’s one act of magic he knows how to perform: how to take lies and make them true.

Getting people to believe you wasn’t the hard part. Any hack capable of stringing a couple sentences together could come up with a halfway decent lie. All you had to do was size up your audience and put the right spin on it. People would happily bend over backward to accommodate even the most outrageous falsehood if it gave them a feeling of importance, or better yet, the illusion of control. After all, the truth was senseless, chaotic, and random. Nobody wanted to believe that. The right kind of lies gave things order, lent them weight and significance.

No, the hard part was that you had to believe it yourself.

He starts writing that night. He’s still working the next morning when Bianca finds him, her hands smudged with grease, dark circles under her eyes, a sheaf of hastily scribbled notes tucked under one arm. She takes one look at him, smiles, and turns back around. The next time he looks up from his pages, there is a cup of tea steaming at his elbow.

His publisher would have been ecstatic if he’d told her what he was working on. She’s been pressuring him for years to write a sequel. But Varric knows from the start that this particular story will have a very limited release. He’ll send her Holiness a copy, of course, and then tell his editor to shelve the thing until after his death.

It’s a formality more than anything else. Everyone it could hurt is already long gone.

But it seems fitting that if he’s going to go digging up the dead, he ought to join their number.

After all, this isn’t an exorcism. It’s a resurrection.

He writes for days. He doesn’t want to stop. It feels so good to see their names on the page again. He puts in some truth, and some lies, some things that were in-between, and some things that he only hoped were true.

The last chapter is the hardest part. The first draft he writes is pure fluff, so saccharine it makes his teeth ache. But he has to believe it for the magic to work. So in the end he mixes the bitter with the sweet, sunshine with shadow. He thinks she would have wanted it that way.

He is acutely aware that this might be his last chance to get it right- not the hastily sanitized version he’d told Cassandra, or the idealized version he’d written in Tale, but Hawke as she was. As she could have been.

And this was how the magic worked: by writing it, you created a place where it was real. Even if that place was only on the page, or in the minds of the people who read it. Once given shape, the possibility existed in some form, no matter how ephemeral or tenuous. It would become a little more real each time someone read it.

When it’s all finished he flips through the pages, inspecting his work. Not bad, he thinks. It’s got all the hallmarks of a classic adventure; a scrappy heroine, a daring last minute rescue, a steamy reunion scene with her brooding lost lover, betrayal, redemption, and of course, a happy ending. It’s a little racier than his usual fare, but he figures it’s healthy for a woman of her Holiness’ age to blush every now and then.

All that’s left is to decide what to call the damn thing. His hand stops on the first page, the very first sentence he’d written in his notes, still haunted by her ghost.

_“She will not fade away.”_

He looks at it consideringly. Then he crosses off the first two words. Shit, it’s not his best title, but it’s a far cry from his worst.

When he’s done, Varric walks back to his bed, and lies down next to the soft, warm body of his wife. As he drifts into sleep, he can just make out Bianca humming the strains of a half-familiar song under her breath. The melody creeps into him until without realizing it, he’s humming it too. Behind his closed eyes he can see them dancing through the shadowlands of the Fade, Hawke with her whiplash grin, Fenris trying to lead her, the pair of them laughing and happy, safe in each other’s arms. Beyond his reach, but not forgotten. Gone, but not lost.

And even though dwarves don’t dream, that night Varric sleeps more soundly than he has in years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [jesus, she's a good girl](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeT_TPt9PKE)  
>   
> 
> (ps- I'm sorry if this story bummed you out. If you like, you can come yell at me [on Tumblr](http://tetrahedrals.tumblr.com/))


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